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  Don’t Tell Me How To Relax: Navigating Burnout Among Female Student Affairs Professionals

  Michele Margaret McDonald

  Student affairs professionals (SAP) report incredibly high levels of burnout, with women burning out at disproportionately higher rates than men. Although there is an abundance of research about what causes work stress and burnout among women in the field, there has been less analysis on how female SAPs are dealing with stress to prevent burnout, as well as if they believe their coping strategies are helping or not. This study seeks to answer the following questions: (1) How are female SAPs navigating burnout in their professional lives? (2) How effective do female SAPs consider their stress-reducing and coping strategies to be? Using a constructivist phenomenological approach, I interviewed 11 female SAPs who have worked in the field for more than five years from a variety of institutional types, functional areas, and position levels. Data analysis shows that several of the most effective coping strategies include setting boundaries, exercise, and having a supportive supervisor; however, COVID has impacted many female SAPs’ ability to manage their stress and burnout. This study has implications for both current and future female SAPs to find effective and healthy ways to navigate burnout and work stress.

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  Drosophila Eye Model to Study the Role of NAT 9 in Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementia (ADRD)

  Prajakta D. Deshpande, Emily M. Snider

  Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a progressive form of dementia that presents itself in individuals aged 65 years or older. AD is characterized by a decline in memory and cognitive function. Currently, there is no cure for AD though symptomatic treatments are available. One of the hallmarks of AD is the accumulation of β-amyloid plaques formed in the brain due to improper cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein. The extracellular accumulation of β-amyloid plaques triggers the hyperphosphorylation of tau, a microtubule-associated protein that helps stabilize microtubule structures in neurons. In its hyperphosphorylated form, tau loses affinity to bind to the microtubules and can oligomerize. This results in the formation of tau tangles and the destabilization of axons and dendrites (necessary for cellular communication). We employed the GAL4-UAS system in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster to misexpress human Aβ42 within the developing fly retina. Using forward genetic screening, we found N-acetyltransferase 9 (NAT 9) as one of the modifiers for the Aβ42 phenotype. NAT 9 is an enzyme that acetylates microtubules and supports the regulation of microtubule stability. This study aims to understand the role of NAT 9 in Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration. The overexpression of NAT 9 in GMR>Aβ42 background suppresses the Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration whereas loss of function of NAT 9 in GMR>Aβ42 results in depigmentation, necrotic spots, and a reduction in eye size as compared to GMR>Aβ42 eye. Our hypothesis is Nat9 may play a role in Aβ42-mediated neurodegeneration.

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  ECE568 Detection and Estimation Final Project Presentation Live Poster Presentations

  Prathiksha Chikkamadal Manjunatha, Cory L. Heatwole, Jeremy Michael Olivar Hill, Achour Idoughi, Ranjani Kripashankar, Hsuan Lin, Sarah Miller, Luc Luc Tinch, Zhiyang Zhang

  The final project is an undertaking of a detection or estimation task of the student's choice. It may involve telecommunication, signal processing, or anything else so long as it is relevant to statistical analysis we studied in class and makes use of real world data.

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  Effective Curriculum and Teaching Strategies for Twice-Exceptional Students

  Morgaine F. Armstrong

  This presentation seeks to explore the most effective teaching methods for allowing twice-exceptional learners to reach their full academic potential. What exactly is a twice-exceptional student? Twice-exceptional students, or “2e” students, have both gifted ability and disability. They have many strengths in one subject area, but learning or developmental difficulties in another. Examples could be children with autism, ADHD, dyslexia or any other condition that impairs learning. Despite the high number of children who could be considered 2e, school systems often struggle to properly identify and support these students. Through educational strategies such as team based instruction and an integrated curriculum, teacher’s can more easily accommodate the unique learning needs of every twice-exceptional learner.

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  Effects of Cold Pressor Test on Cerebral Blood Flow and Motor Control

  Sarah M. Collins, Kiersten Michelle Duffy

  Motor control can be divided between gross and fine motor skills, which are impacted by environmental and genetic influences. Although the population of interest was pilots, the subjects involved in the study were male and female college students. The aim of the study was to explore the impact of stress on motor control, and gain helpful physiological information to improve the performance of pilots. Both men and women were selected for the study, then completed three phases: familiarization, control, and experimental. The experimental trial included a cold pressor test (CPT). A CPT involves a participant placing their limb in a container of ice water, which acts as an acute physiological stress and activator for the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The results between the three trials were measured and compared to determine a relationship between motor control and physiological stress.

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  Effects of Health and Sports Science Classes on the Students’ Body Image Perception and Behaviors

  Emily Frances Harnen, Allison J. Ladd, Emilia Jelski Porter

  There are a number of individual and personal factors that contribute to poor body image and corresponding health-related behaviors. The influence of social media and Western culture on body image has been well examined; however, less is known about how the study of behavioral, dietary, and medical health interventions affects body image perception in health professionals. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the correlation between taking health-related classes and personal behavior and body image perception among students at a 4-year university. We will recruit both male and female participants of sophomore standing or higher at the University of Dayton who were enrolled as full-time students taking undergraduate classes. First year and graduate students will be excluded from the study. This cross-sectional study will be conducted using a self-administered survey sent to undergraduate students via google forms. We referenced the previously validated Body Dysmorphic Disorder Questionnaire (BDDQ), Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory (MDDI), and Body Image Avoidance Questionnaire (BIA-Q) in order to generate original questions for the study. The results from our questions will yield a body image score for each participant. This score will be used to run an independent t-test to compare body image perceptions between health majors and non-health majors.

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  Effects of State Legalization of Recreational Marijuana on Young Adult Usage Rates

  Hunter Kathryn Soumar

  The research in this presentation is covering usage of marijuana by young adults. It is specifically looking at how usage rates changed from years 2002 to 2018, focusing on young adults ages 18 to 25. From the year 2002 to 2018, certain states included in the research have legalized the usage of recreational marijuana for ages 21 and above. The research question is evaluating if this legalization had an effect on the yearly usage rates. The sample population contains a geographical variety of states across the United States which both have and have not legalized recreational marijuana. The research was conducted using a regression method to evaluate the relationship between variables. The quantitative data used is from secondary sources, looking at values of young adult usage rates from 2002 to 2018 in specific states. The significant findings portray a national trend of increasing usage rates by young adults. However, the consistent increase in national usage rates cannot be attributed to the legalization of recreational marijuana. Both legalized and non-legalized states included in the research show higher usage rates as years progressed. Some possible future hypotheses may explore the generational differences of marijuana usage, as opposed to research focusing on ages 18 to 25. As society changes, trends, beliefs and values will adjust as well. It is important our data stays up to date so we as a society can better understand the past, present and future trends.

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  Effects of Substance Use on Juvenile Delinquency

  Abbigaile A. Ehrenborg

  Juvenile substance use throughout the United States has consistently been an issue. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that are enabling substance abuse among juveniles. The focus of the current study is to examine the link between juveniles’ use of sedatives and shoplifting. The current study used the Pathways to Desistance data, a longitudinal study of 1,354 serious juvenile offenders between ages of 14 years old to under 18 years old from Philadelphia and Phoneix. The sample consisted of 86% males, 41.4% African American, 20% White, and 33.5% of the rest of the sample consisted of other races, who had been found guilty of at least one serious violent crime, property offense or drug offense. The relationship between sedatives and shoplifting was analyzed using a bivariate correlation. Findings show that there was no correlation between these two variables, therefore making them nonsignificant. Findings and implications will be discussed.

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  Empirical Research Presentations in Economics

  Thomas Abrams, Brandon D. Adams, Brian Patrick Allspaw, Carleigh Joy Baum, Gavin Alexander Bicknell, Christopher J. Birck, Ethan M. Bogan, Benjamin Bussen, Antonio J. Concha, Natalie M. Coppolino, Michael Anthony Cortese, Kyle Joseph DeSantis, Allison Ann Edwards, Mitchell Scott Erickson, Michael Andrew Fields, Hunter R. Folan, Michael E. Francis, Kaitlyn M. Fullenkamp, Benjamin Romohr Furash, Nicholas William Garth, Joseph W. Guehring, Tia Anastasia Hachwa, Maeve Murnane Harrington, Allison Rose Keith, Maximilian B. Kirk, Bridget Bozena Krysztopa, Benjamin F. Lally, Amira Elizabeth Learst-Ahmed, Ethan Thomas Letsch, Lauren E. Luechtefeld, John Kameron Milliken, Matthew F. Mittelstaedt, Jacob Robert Pieniazek, Dillon J. Pietrangelo, Hamza Nasser Majid Mansoor Rumhi, Danielle M. Savovich, Matthew Brian Shea, Madison Sinclair Sheets, William Henry Sloyan, Conrad Harrison Tubbs, Adam L. Uhlenbrock, Mitchell Alexander Walsh, Osa M. Wheeler, Lauren P. Williams, Nolan Patrick Yager

  Four years of coursework culminate in a written and oral presentation of an empirical research project during the senior capstone course. Students apply economic theory and econometric techniques to analyze data in order to answer an original research question.

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  Environmental Racism, Urban Ecosystems, and the Pursuit of Solutions that Enfranchise Communities of Color

  Niani Brown

  Environmental justice is a social justice issue concerned with equity of protection, involvement, and consideration of all people and communities regarding environmental regulation from development to enforcement. Environmental racism, then, is the idea that historical discrimination has limited access to environmental benefits for some members of the population based on race. This includes access to healthy food options, disaster protection, relief, and greenspace--issues that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. This study focuses on greenspace access, in particular, using the City of Dayton and surrounding areas as a model. I looked at previous research that focused on the uneven distribution in poor and minority communities as a whole and compared this to what is seen in the model system as well as the ways in which access to greenspace benefits the community and the environment. I focused the latter part of the study on community involvement and engagement. This project specifically focused on how environmental injustice has impacted residents in North and West Dayton and the ways that environmental justice initiatives can engage the community and work alongside other social justice initiatives to bring about positive change.

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  Examining the Link Between Community Policing and De-escalation Techniques

  Daniel Joseph Bandelaria, Colby Michael Tuttle

  One characteristic of community policing is the defining role of positive police-citizen relationships. Researchers and police alike have posited that this feature of community policing may influence de-escalation techniques during police-citizen interaction. However, empirical research testing this assumption is lacking. As such, the current study aims to explore the relationship between community policing and de-escalation techniques among one police agency in a Midwestern state. The current study used a cross-sectional online survey to ask a series of questions about community policing techniques and de-escalation. The sample consisted of 15 police officers who were mainly Caucasian (90%) and males (60%) and had served approximately ten years in the service. Due to the small sample size, univariate descriptive statistics were conducted. Findings show that many of the officers (73.3%) believe their department puts a great amount of focus on community policing. Furthermore, 86.7% of the participants strongly agree that community policing includes collaboration, with 66.7% of them believing that community policing includes problem-solving with community members. Out of the 15 participants, 46.7% of them somewhat agreed that community policing techniques increase their use of de-escalation techniques. Approximately, 40% of the participants said that they may feel safer knowing that their community policing techniques are being used to de-escalate situations. Findings and implications will be discussed in the results section.

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  Experiences of Students with Learning Disabilities

  Andrew John Sellers

  Students with learning disabilities (LD) are required to self-identify at higher education institutions. This study sought to see how self-identification impacts the student’s perception of connection to their campus. Using a constructivist narrative approach, the researcher interview four students at a private midwestern institution whom had identified with the disability services office. The results of the study show that the LD student motivation for success overrode any perception of potential negative campus perception. This study provides implications in how students in learning disabilities perceive their campus connections.

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  Experiential Learning Reflections From Human Rights Students

  Katelyn Hallie Barnes, Anna Elizabeth Beebe, Bailee K. Boland, Liliana Melissa Busic, Grace Elizabeth Cannon, Morgan Morgan Cox, Lydia Rita Fatime Diabate-Tonne, Grace Elaine Gibson, Hannah Elizabeth Gibson, Bridget Therese Graham, Tongyu Guo, Lauren Marie Higgins, Laura Ann Hughes, Aileen Marisa Hull, Kate Mulvihill Jones, Kelsey Marie Kamil, Samuel S. Laird, Maya Rose Leibold, Kaitlin B. Lewis, Brandy Megan Lynch, Anna Mumma, Cameron Cristina Nowlin, Meredith N. Robinson, Steven Stalnaker Shamblen, Jennifer Ann Sobnosky, Lauren Elizabeth Tobal, Nicole Ann Vanvoorhis, Angela Kay Weiland

  This course involves an experiential learning project with two NGO partners, Counterpart International and Miss Able-Humura. Students, working in teams of 4-5, are engaged in a range of projects from social media and marketing to strategic visioning and fundraising to programming and alumni networking. For this Stander Presentation, students will present their work and will reflect on the challenges and opportunities of partnering with NGOs in the context of a course, particularly one focused on human rights.

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  Experimental Validation of Low Temperature Viscosity Predictions for Sustainable Aviation Fuel Blends

  Franchesca Rose Hauck

  With the rise of focus and funding in sustainable initiatives, the transportation sector has identified Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) as a response to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas outputs into the atmosphere. Before SAFs can be used by airlines, they have to pass an approval process to make sure fuels operate within industry standards. The approval processes is very time and material expensive. To lower overall costs to this process, a pre-screening process has been developed to predict physical and chemical properties of the prospective fuels. Viscosity has been identified as one of the key properties as it lends itself to is ignition probability prediction.The focus of this study is to validate different viscosity extrapolation and blending models at low temperatures. The blends tested are ternary blends of current fuels and key molecules found within approved SAFs. Four different sets of blends were tested to see how other physical or chemical properties affect the viscosity when blended and measured at -40°C and -20°C. Of the six models tested, the Arrhenius Blending Model results in the least amount of error compared to experimental values. As molecules were introduced into the blend sets, errors increased. Overall low error suggests the utility of this blend model in property prediction. To further lower error, future work can investigate the effects of molecular size and interactions within blends.

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  Explainable Deep Learning for Construction Site Safety

  Ishan Vijay Ghutake

  The construction industry is going through a huge shift toward automation, with safety being one of the major challenges. We always want to take measures through which more accidents resulting serious injuries and deaths could be avoided. Indeed the construction sites are bound with several safety rules, one of the most important is having required personal protective equipment (PPE) based on the worker working environment. The presence of the monitoring camera at construction site provides an opportunity to enforce these safety rules by applying computer vision techniques and algorithms. This study shows capability of the Deep Learning model to classify worker as safe and unsafe and provides logical explanation to strengthen the prediction result. Here we exemplified classification of worker by using five convolutional neural network models with various layer structures. We collect a dataset of construction site scenes and annotate each image scene as safe and unsafe according to the workers working environment. The state-of-the-art neural networks successfully perform the binary classification with up to 90% accuracy. Furthermore, feature visualizations, such as Guided Back Propagation, Grad-CAM and different variants of LRP which is successful in showing which pixel in the original image contribute to the diagnosis and to what extent.

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  Exploration of Correlations in Fitness and Injury Screening Clinic

  Luke Kelly Knapke, Julianna D. Leonard, Will Stephen Majercak, Abigail R. Shahady, Ciara Ann White

  The Department of Health and Sport Science has recently piloted a Nutrition, Fitness, and Injury Screening clinic to provide an experiential-learning opportunity for our student practitioners as well as important health-related data to the campus community. Within this program, clients are able to complete one or more of the following: nutritional consultations, health and skill related fitness testing, and injury screening. Here, we examine a variety of potential relationships between the numerous assessments that were performed. Specifically, we have explored questions both within each aspect of the clinic and several cross-disciplinary queries. Within the fitness testing protocols, we compared the multiple body composition and resting energy expenditure estimations and measurements that were made. Within the injury screening task, we assessed multiple measures of lower body coordination. With an interest in understanding how fitness measures may relate to and/or predict injury-risk, we also examined the relationship between: 1) balance and body composition; and, 2) lower body power and high-risk lower body coordination patterns. Our combined oral presentation will highlight our procedures and findings, as well as potential future investigations we are interested in pursuing.

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  Exploring Dynamic Viscosity with Self-Assembly Systems Outside of Equilibrium

  Andrew Peter Lingafelter, Jack Brian Mclean

  All fluids have a characteristic viscosity and fluids commonly studied exist in an equilibrium state. However, some exist outside of equilibrium. These fluids are known as non-Newtonian fluids. Non-Newtonian fluids have a dynamic viscosity, which means that the coefficient of viscosity is dependent on the pressure of the system as well as temperature. Systems that have the ability to self-assemble from surfactant molecules also can express this dynamic viscosity, and achieve a state outside of equilibrium. The making and characteristics of such a system were explored. Copious amounts of energy are wasted in the form of heat ejected into the atmosphere from general to industrial processes. Future applications of self-assembly systems could include harnessing and reutilizing this wasted energy.

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  Exploring the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Asian and Asian-American Students at the University of Dayton

  Michaela Catherine Kenney

  The overall purpose of this research was to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Asian and Asian American students at the University of Dayton, particularly in regards to racist language surrounding the pandemic. The Asian population is often overlooked in terms of studying racism and prejudice, and since the beginning of the pandemic, hate crimes and reports of discrimination have never been higher. In order to study this at UD, a survey with questions regarding their experience during the pandemic was used with convenience sampling, including participants from various Asian American organizations on campus. Additionally, follow-up interviews were conducted to go more in depth on participants’ experiences regarding prejudice and discrimination. Out of 10 survey respondents, half of the participants reported facing some form of prejudice from other students because of their race or ethnicity as a result of the pandemic. Additionally, 60% of the participants reported facing some form of prejudice from the general public because of their race or ethnicity as a result of the pandemic. 90% of the respondents also reported an increase in stress or anxiety as a result of the pandemic. Although this study draws from a small sample, the implications for this research requires attention to the Asian and Asian American community as hate crime and reports of discrimination continue to climb.

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  Exploring the Relationship Between Parental Warmth and Delinquency Among Youthful Offenders

  Sean Joseph Stull

  The focus of the current paper is to examine the link between parental warmth and delinquency. The specific focus was looking at how both parents’ parental warmth levels impact the adolescents in the study in relation to aggressive crimes. The research question for this paper is, "How does the level of parental warmth from both parents contribute to the possibility of the child becoming aggressively delinquent?” Research was done first to see what past studies and data was found on the subject. Some of the research done was finding out the definition of parental warmth and similar experiments done, all of which will be covered in the paper. The Pathway to Desistance data was used to test the aforementioned research question. The Pathways to Desistance is, a study conducted in Pennsylvania and Arizona that examined 1,354 serious juvenile offenders to assess the factors and experiences linked to their desistance from delinquency as they age out of adolescence. The sample is 86.4% males, 14.6% females, 20.2% white, 41.4% black, 33.5% Hispanic, and 4.5% Other. The educational level of the sample was 87.9% of the juveniles are either in school or skipped the question while 12% dropped out. Results from the study determined there is no correlation between parental warmth and aggressive offending, but the mother variable was close to correlation and could have correlation in other future studies. The policy implication will be discussed in the symposium.

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  Fantasies of TikTok: The Limits of Social Media and Holocaust Advocacy

  Katharine Louise Schreyer

  Over the past decade, Holocaust scholars and museum professionals have debated the value of social media for teaching and commemorating the Shoah. Whether user-generated or created by institutions, native social media content is marginal in at least two senses. First, such content circulates outside the academic and professional venues in which Holocaust history and pedagogy are traditionally discussed. Second, such content is highly ephemeral - subject to sudden removal or alteration by creators or platform-owners.This paper advances these debates by analyzing a recent, and controversial, form of social media engagement with the Shoah: user-generated videos circulated on TikTok. Since TikTok is a fairly new platform populated mostly by young people, it is not seen as a venue for serious education or outreach. News of user-generated videos purporting to take the perspective of Holocaust victims, survivors, or witnesses sparked public outrage and spurred swift removal in the fall of 2020, demonstrating just how marginal such content is. However, the lines between such point-of-view (POV) videos and the multi-modal educational experiences offered by Holocaust museums or sites of destruction are not entirely clear. The first aim of this paper is to identify what features these practices have in common and consider which are distinctive - and distinctively worrying about - TikTok. The second aim of the paper is to ask what legitimate uses TikTok videos might have for increasing public awareness of the Holocaust and aiding human rights advocacy. A comparison between inherently short-form TikTok videos and longer-format digital content (such as podcasts or audio-visual testimonies) shows that TikTok is not an appropriate venue for crafting oral histories or recording the testimony of survivors. But TikTok’s heavy reliance on montage, capabilities for layering text and visuals, and proprietary modes for “stitching” content from multiple users offer potentially valuable resources for advocacy campaigns.

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  Far Out Flower Child: Psychedelic Tourism and the Hippy Invasion of Latin America

  Adam M. Graber

  During the 1960s, the Hippy movement created an environment that allowed a new kind of tourism to thrive. Tourism to Latin America, primarily Mexico specifically, increased during 1960s and 70s as a result of the psychedelic renaissance. The tourism in question here would become known as psychedelic tourism. This provoked Mexico into deporting and demonizing those tourists and creating a new kind of tourism whilst also significantly impacting those rituals and native peoples that partook in highly secret psychedelic rituals that have existed for thousands of years.

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  Financial Discrimination in Bangladesh

  Sydni Dionna Kidd, Elenore L. Stebbins

  Based on the work and data gathered by Counterpart International, a development agency funded by USAID, this presentation examines how financial discrimination in Bangladesh impact gender equality. This is part of a larger program Counterpart International has implemented since 2018, titled, ‘Promoting Advocacy and Rights’ (PAR) in collaboration with local non-government organizations (NGOs). Anchored in the Gender/Women in Development (GID/WID) approach, PAR aims to deepen democratic values within civil society to improve public governance. Financial discriminations are economic factors based on race, gender, economic status, and amount of investment in an area or region. In Bangladesh, rural women have been the most affected by financial discrimination from NGOs and the banks. Several factors are in play when someone experiences discrimination. Counterpart International has done significant work and research for the Bangladeshi people and in fact Bangladesh is also a signatory of major human rights conventions including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). These three particular United Nations treaties help protect citizens from discrimination and crime committed against them by their own country. Counterpart has created different evaluations and reward systems that help monitor this financial discrimination through programs such as Reporting Total Compensation of Recipient Executives, Electronic Payments System, Salary Supplement Guidance and more.

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  Finding the Way: Identifying the Fine Line between Indoctrination and Education through the Sentiments of Students, Faculty, and Staff at Two Catholic Universities

  Tahreem Fayiz

  When students are in the college search process, they look to many different resources to help them find the best fit, and for some, that includes prioritizing the campus’ faith traditions. For students who prioritize their Catholic faith, the seek to find a campus that fulfill that promise of cultivating the person to live life following the way of Christ and His teachings. Students, however, are not the only ones who become community members at Catholic institutions. Faculty and staff may also consider the faith identity of an institution when seeking employment to find what is best for themselves. In this research, students, faculty, and staff members across two institutions were interviewed in order to understand how the perceive the Catholic identity of their institutions. The findings from this study will contribute towards gaining a better understanding of Catholic identity at nominally Catholic higher education institutions. This study will likely encourage more discussion among various Catholic higher education actors.

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  First-Year Student Engagement in Campus Activities Programs During COVID-19

  Jairad Strait Hydrick

  Existing research highlights the relationship between student engagement and student success and persistence; however, this relationship is predicated on the ability of students to freely engage with one another, which has not been the case during the COVID-19 pandemic. Colleges and universities and their campus activities programs have transitioned to offering virtual, hybrid, and in-person programs that limit peer-to-peer and peer-to-staff interaction, so as mitigate health and safety risks. These restrictions contradict what has been long understood to be “best practice.” In response, this study sought to understand (1) how first-year students are engaging, or not engaging, with campus activities programs; (2) how COVID-19 impacted students’ decision to engage and not engage; and (3) the impact on desired student engagement outcomes. Using a survey design, first-year students at private, Catholic institution in the Midwest were surveyed regarding their attitudes and experiences with COVID-19, engagement with campus activities programs, and achievement of desired outcomes. Results demonstrate that while students continued to engage in various campus activities programs, and felt safe doing so, COVID-19 impacted students’ decision how to engage. Additionally, most participants felt disconnected from their peers, more concerned for their mental health, and a decreased sense of belonging. This study has implications for understanding the needs of the first-year students, who are most vulnerable to attrition, whose transition has been significantly disrupted by COVID-19, as well as emerging scholarship on engaging students across multiple modalities.

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  Flexibility, Creativity, and Adaptability in the Sunshine State: A Local Study of Nonprofit Organizations During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  Lauren Elizabeth Tobal

  Nonprofit organizations are integral parts of communities across the world and often serve as safety nets for vulnerable populations. From healthcare to housing, nonprofits have the ability to make tremendous differences in people’s lives. This research, examined through the lens of civil society, helps to understand the ways in which nonprofit organizations contribute to society in unprecedented times. This study examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on nonprofit organizations through in-depth interviews with leaders of four local nonprofits in Naples, FL. The organizations interviewed vary by the services they provide, but each support at-risk populations in a variety of ways. Participants were chosen based on convenience sampling and recommendations from other interviewees. Results from this research show increases in the number of individuals and families the nonprofits served, increases in the amount of collaboration between local nonprofit organizations, as well as some interesting positives that arose from the COVID-19 pandemic. From these findings, I conclude that nonprofit organizations are an integral part of supporting local communities, especially in times of crisis.