Stander Symposium: All projects - 2024

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  Texting Frequency and Distraction Levels: A Comprehensive Analysis Among Young Adults.

  Jahmia A. Bridges-Butler, Gift Oluwatosin Olalusi

  This paper intends to explore the frequency of texting and its impacts on the levels of distraction. The existing scholarly research surrounding this subject encompasses various perspectives, including the impact of texting on education, knowledge retention, and driving performance. Studies have found a positive correlation between texting as a distraction and reading in the classroom, as well as a relationship between texting and distracted driving, accounting for numerous injuries and fatalities. This study intends to fill the gap upon these previous findings by addressing whether there is a significant difference between the frequency of texts on near miss accidents and gender. Additionally, exploring the correlation between the frequency of texting on getting work done and walking.

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  That’s Alright Mama

  Jacob Russell Hausler

  This THR/VAR 250 Diversity in the Creative and Performing Arts poster presentation project requires each student to research and present on a topic relevant to the interdisciplinary fields of visual and performing arts through a critical multicultural and social justice lens that foregrounds the appreciation of diversity and enables the expansion of personal cultural competencies.

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  The Angelus & Regina Coeli Prayers

  Ella Germana Bach

  The Angelus and the Regina Coeli are two prayers recited at 6 am, noon and 6 pm, the Regina Coeli being prayed in place of the Angelus during Eastertide. The Angelus is comprised of 3 sections with a Hail Mary in between, while the Regina Coeli has 6 sections ending in alleluia. Although the exact origins of both prayers are unknown, the Angelus is thought to begin from monks who prayed three Hail Mary’s in the evening at the last church bell. The Regina Coeli, comes from a legend where three angels appeared to St. Gregory the Great on an Easter morning, chanting the first three lines of the Regina Coeli. Both prayers appeared in manuscripts from the 12th and 13th centuries. The Angelus and Regina Coeli were approved to be prayed at the bells by Pope Benedict XIV in 1724 and 1742, respectively. These prayers represent multiple biblical passages and are tied in with the dogma of the Mother of God. The Angelus is especially related to the 4th Sunday in Advent while the Regina Coeli is related to the Easter season to celebrate the resurrection. These prayers promote feeling a sense of peace, joy and grounding as they plead for Mary’s mediation and reflect on her trust in God which Catholics aim to emulate. Overall, both of these prayers are very important to the Catholic faith and provide a way of meditation and a reminder of what Mary did for Catholics.

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  The Brain Health Collective

  Hannah Josephine Moore

  The Brain Health Collective produces community partnerships and interdisciplinary research that contribute to the greater good in the Greater Dayton region. The BHC consists of an Advisory Board and the following four workgroups: Professional Education, Continuum of Care, Awareness & Promotion, and Collaborative Applied Research. We also have opportunities for student involvement.

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  The Chipko Movement: Gandhian Philosophy in Action

  Colin E. Meehan

  What is nonviolence — a concept, a mode of protest, a practice for modern living? This poster explores the ways in which nonviolence has been historically interpreted as "ahimsa," "beloved community," and as a way for practical and ethical thinking in our modern lives. We highlight the role of nonviolence as method and practice in historical and contemporary global instances that range from the farm workers movement, anti-nuclear protests, environmental green politics, and Dalit and Black actions towards representation.

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  The Chipko Movement: Voices of Indian Women Heard

  Carla Pettiford

  ChandiPrasad Bhatt, an environmentalist along with SundergalBahuguaand GuanaDevi, were the prominent leaders of the movement. Chandiin 1964, established the Dasholi, Gram, Swarajya, Mandal (DGSM), a cooperative organization dedicated to improving the lives of villagers; this included providing employment close to their homes in forest-based industries and fighting against flawed policies through Gandhian non-violent Satyagraha (firmness in a good cause, or the law of self-suffering). These programs were specifically targeted to women as participants which was a practical move since the women were the ones who gathered the wood, and water for cooking, and had a spiritual and physical relationship with nature that provided for their families daily. There was a synthesis created between practical field knowledge and the latest scientific innovations for the conservation of the environment and ecology in the region. This would be a sustaining practice that would change the way the forests were handled for decades to come.

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  The Christian Influence on Gandhi: A Systematic Review

  Emma E. Clark

  What is nonviolence — a concept, a mode of protest, a practice for modern living? This poster explores the ways in which nonviolence has been historically interpreted as "ahimsa," "beloved community," and as a way for practical and ethical thinking in our modern lives. We highlight the role of nonviolence as method and practice in historical and contemporary global instances that range from the farm workers movement, anti-nuclear protests, environmental green politics, and Dalit and Black actions towards representation.

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  The Driving Factors of Childhood Malnutrition in the United States

  Jaelyn Sarah Nycole Manley, Morgan Taylor

  When asked about a country with alarming levels of childhood malnutrition, would the United States of America come to mind? According to Hart Research Associates and Chesapeake Beach Consulting (2014), less than half of the American adult population considers hunger in the U.S. to be a large issue. However, when considering that in the year 2022, an estimated 13 million children in the United States struggled with hunger, it is shocking that the public is not more aware of such an issue (Child Hunger in America, 2022). The growing issue of childhood malnutrition in America is complex due to the various factors which contribute to it. Shining light on this issue, Feeding America identifies three primary drivers of malnutrition: diminished family income, the availability to afford proper housing, and the influences of racism and discrimination (Child Hunger in America, 2022).Furthermore, the CDC states that American students receive less than 8 hours of nutritional education yearly (Healthy Eating Learning Opportunities and Nutrition Education 2023). Khattak and Ghazanfar (2017) explain that a mother’s lack of nutrition education leads to poor feeding choices for their children.In this poster, we will discuss family income, access to proper housing, the effects of racism and discrimination, and lack of nutritional education as the driving factors of childhood malnutrition in the United States.

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  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.

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  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.

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  The Effect of Parental Monitoring on Adolescent Substance Abuse

  Luke Anthony Reiser, Zachary Peter Rocco

  This study explores the impact of parental monitoring on adolescent substance abuse, which utilizes data from the Pathways to Desistance dataset. This dataset includes juveniles in the criminal justice system. This study, which included a sample of 1,354 male and female adolescents aged between 14 and 18 found guilty of offenses, aimed to seek out a relationship between parental monitoring, knowledge, and the prevalence of substance abuse among adolescents. Findings from our regression analysis show that while parental monitoring did not show a significant direct correlation with drug use, parental knowledge did show a consistent negative relationship with both drug and alcohol use among adolescents. Indicating that increased parental knowledge significantly reduced the likelihood of substance abuse among these adolescents. The study also highlights the roles of both mother warmth and hostility, excluding father warmth and hostility due to the high volume of missing data. The findings particularly noted that higher levels of mother hostility were significantly associated with an increased chance for drug use. Alternatively, the study found a negative association between parental monitoring and adolescent alcohol use, which suggests that more involved and knowledgeable parenting could reduce the likelihood of alcohol consumption.

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  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.

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  The effects of caffeine on athletic performance amongst female collegiate basketball players

  Kara Marie Gunter, Madeline Joy Kapsimalis, Jillian E. Peltier, Jenna Elizabeth Williams, Ivy Elizabeth Wolf

  Caffeine intake has been popular amongst collegiate athletes for decades in hopes that its supplementation is beneficial to their athletic performance. Prior studies have found mixed results in determining whether caffeine intake has significantly improved athletic performance when comparing the results of various functional skill tests (e.g., handgrip strength, Sargent’s jump, upper-body explosive power, attack skill, service skill, hand movement speed, Illinois agility) (Nemati et al., 2023). Significant results were found regarding some of the tests; however, the results were not conclusive enough to generalize what was found. The purpose of this study is to investigate how caffeine intake correlates to athletic performance and heart rate in female collegiate basketball players. We aim to investigate the relationship between caffeine consumption and its effects on cardiovascular activity and physical exertion by collecting data through a questionnaire survey, and performance measurement on two separate practice days.The data will be collected from female basketball players at the University of Dayton. By using a quasi-experimental design, our participants will report their performance after the practice sessions. First, they will not consume caffeine before practice as their heart rate is monitored. The same participants will have their heart rate monitored after consuming 200mg of caffeine (Alani Nu Energy Drink) before practice on a different day. While this study is still under investigation, our results will suggest how caffeine consumption may have a positively significant impact on athletic performance in female collegiate basketball players. Our findings will provide further understanding into how caffeine can perhaps enhance athletic performance and whether the findings are significant enough to be applicable to a generalized population of athletes looking to boost their performance.

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  The Effects of Employment Status on Physical Well-being in College Aged Students

  Julia Lauren Callahan

  Stress that can come with an individuals occupation whether that be the type of position they hold or the benefits they receive from that position can have a negative effect on their mental and physical well-being. A common result is burnout which can be characterized by physical or mental collapse due to overwork or stress. College often becomes a time in which students not only manage academics but also become responsible for obtaining a job to cover various college expenses. The goal of this research project is to look at employment status in college aged students and how that affects their physical well-being.

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  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.

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  The effects of prairie seed mix composition and soil amendments on Quercus macrocarpa seedling success during post-agricultural restoration

  Lindsey Christine Dewey

  In the last century, worldwide, there has been an increase in the amount of abandoned agricultural land. In eastern North America, restoration efforts often focus on trying to restore these post agricultural fields to native forest. The natural secondary succession of post-agricultural landscapes is hindered by many barriers including diminished carbon and nitrogen in the soil, herbivory, disruption of symbiotic mycorrhizal relationships, and invasive species. Restoration efforts such as applying seeding mixes to reduce invasive species, plant legumes to restore nitrogen to the soil, whole soil additions to help restore the microbial community, and the addition of mulch to add carbon into the soil are being used to mitigate these barriers. Abandoned fields represent a unique opportunity to help restore some of the eastern North American native forest; however, ensuring tree seedling success in the relatively inhospitable conditions of a post-agricultural field remains a significant challenge. Working with our community partners, Five Rivers Metroparks (Dayton, Ohio) we established a fully replicated restoration experiment on a 12 ha post agricultural field in the Spring Run Conservation Area. We established 20 plots and assigned one of four prairie plant seed mixes: high diversity + high legume content; high diversity + low legume content; low diversity + high legume content; low diversity + low legume content. Each plot was also split into four subplots that received one of four soil amendments: no amendment (control), whole soil transplant, mulch application, and whole soil and mulch. In each subplot, six bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) saplings were planted. The height and basal diameter of each surviving sapling was measured in the spring of 2022 directly after planting, after one growing season in the fall of 2022, and after a second growing season in the fall of 2023. One sample was collected from every subplot in the fall of 2022 and 2023 to measure sapling biomass and examine the ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) root colonization. After two growing seasons the seed mixes significantly affected the basal diameter of oak saplings and sapling root weight was higher in the high diversity plots. Additionally, increased EMF colonization was positively correlated with increased sapling height. However, in our study many treatments had no significant effect on the success of bur oak saplings. It is likely that microclimates and herbivory had the strongest influence on bur oak sapling success.

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  The Effects of Religion and Spirituality on Mental Well-Being

  Maria Sophia Przybyla

  Past research has shown that religion and spirituality can have a great impact on an individual's well-being, whether that effect is positive or negative. Religion and spirituality can ultimately be used as a source of therapy for those with mental illnesses and also improve a person's mental health in general. Some examples of a positive effect include improving or preventing depression, anxiety, and suicide. While knowing it can better a person's well-being, it also has the possibility to worsen an individual's mental health by creating the emotions of shame, guilt, and not being accepted amongst a religious community. The goal of this research project is to better understand the relationship of an individual's religion/spirituality and mental well-being.

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  The Effects of Sodium Propionate on Developmental Stages in Drosophila melanogaster

  Rihanna L. Domingos, Isabelle Mae Ellis

  Propionate, or propionic acid, is a common food additive used to inhibit mold and some bacterial growth. Propionate has been recognized as a metabolic disruptor as it has been linked to an increase in obesity and other digestive changes. This experiment aims to explore the effects of sodium propionate on the developmental processes of Drosophila melanogaster. The experiment involved exposing drosophila larvae to varying concentrations of sodium propionate infused with their regular food and observing larval growth, pupation, adult emergence, adult physiology, and fitness. Preliminary results demonstrate notable alterations in development, physiology, and fitness. Future research will help establish D. melanogaster as an experimental model to investigate molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of propionate.

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  The Effects of Solar Panels on Precipitation Runoff

  Destiny S. Cratsenberg, Lindsey Christine Dewey, Emily M. Sobolewski, Megan Starr Tierney

  Solar power is one of the largest sources of renewable energy, and the most widely used form of solar energy is solar panels. Due to misinformation, solar panels are causing controversy regarding their leaching ability and the changing in ability to contaminate through the years. This misinformation is because solar panels are constructed with chemicals like silica, phosphorous and boron that negatively affect the environment when in high levels. A large concern regarding solar panels is their greater leaching potential when a solar panel is cracked. The goal of our study was to determine if installed solar panels introduced chemicals into precipitation runoff. We chose two study sites; our first site was Danial Curran place which had tilting panels and was established in 2018. Our second site was the Marianist Environmental Education Center (MEEC) which had fixed panels and was established in 2023. At these sites we tested our hypothesis that despite where water is collected in the several different locations at the solar farms, there will be no noticeable difference between the chemistry of water collected. To test this hypothesis, we placed twenty water collectors in varying locations around each of the solar farms. These locations are in the buffer zone (no overall interaction), in the aisle (no direct interaction) and under the panels drip line. At Daniel Curran Place, we placed an additional seven water collectors due to the presence of cracked panels in the farm. After placement, we allowed for one week worth of rain to accumulate in the water collectors. In the lab the amount of ammonia, nitrate, silica, and phosphate were tested using Lamotte kits. From these tests, we found that there was no significant difference between the water chemistry levels from the different locations, especially of the cracked panels. The only difference was less phosphorous in the drip line of the solar panels, but it wasn’t statistically significant enough to consider. These findings allowed us to conclude that solar panels do not have any negative effects on the water chemistry from precipitation runoff. There may be future implications for nutrient availability to the plants below the drip line but concerning the leaching abilities solar panels do not cause any.

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  The End of Writing as We Know It? A Descriptive Case Study ChatGPT Usage among College Students in Required Writing Seminars

  Taylor Lee Baxter, Alexandra M. Dimarco, Grace Marie Pierucci, Toni Ann Selman, Skylar Barbara Sharkey, Patrick W. Thomas, Lucy Larkin Waskiewicz

  Recent uptake of Generative AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, has had considerable impact on students’ experiences learning to write. Unlike more quotidian assistive writing technologies, such as Grammarly or Google’s Smart Compose feature, the rise of ChatGPT marked a far more significant shift in how people produce writing. Both the cultural attention and the technical efficiency to GenAI technologies have lured students into daily use of tools like ChatGPT, and regardless of instructor knowledge, …. or it’s linguistic limitations, student use of ChatGPT continues apace.This presentation reports on a semester-long research project investigating students’ use of ChatGPT for the purpose of completing academic writing assignments. Focusing, for the sake of depth, on a few case examples, this study examines students’ ChatGPT use within required first- and second-year writing courses: arguably the very courses in which students are expected to learn how to write for the university. We explore questions about when and how students prompt ChatGPT for assistance in writing academic essays, the types of prompts that students compose, and the outputs that students’ prompts generate. Drawing on data from a survey, in-depth interviews, and tstudents’ ChatGPT prompts and subsequent ChatGPT output, we highlight findings that identify moments within the writing process that students engage with ChatGPT, as well as the kind of assistance they seek and the ways that they incorporate ChatGPT outputs into their writing. In doing so, we highlight implications for students in using ChatGPT for academic essay writing, professors in evaluating student writing that makes use of ChatGPT outputs, and universities in the process of developing policies regarding student use of ChatGPT in writing courses.

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  The Environmental Activism of the Q’eqchi’ Tribe of Central America

  Delany Baldinger, Makayla E. Cripe, Justine Smith, Sandra Todd

  The Q’eqchi’ are a Mayan tribe of Central America who are collectively organizing to advocate for environmental protections in their regions. Multinational corporations, including mining industries, have engaged in practices that have contaminated land and water resources in Guatemala and other Central American countries. The Q’eqchi’s fishing industry is in danger of collapse. Cancers and other illnesses are on the rise. This poster session documents the efforts and results of the Q’eqchi’ as they organize against the negative health and economic impacts of these harmful practices. Their work sets an example for other, formerly disenfranchised, communities to organize a powerful voice against multinational corporations who exploit the environment and long-term well-being of the regions where they have chosen to harvest resources and manufacture.

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  The Foundations of The Freedom Rides of 1961 During The Civil Rights Movement

  Lindsey Anne Cloos

  What is nonviolence — a concept, a mode of protest, a practice for modern living? This poster explores the ways in which nonviolence has been historically interpreted as "ahimsa," "beloved community," and as a way for practical and ethical thinking in our modern lives. We highlight the role of nonviolence as method and practice in historical and contemporary global instances that range from the farm workers movement, anti-nuclear protests, environmental green politics, and Dalit and Black actions towards representation.

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  The Gamma-Exponentiated Burr Type XII Distribution

  Hannah R. Wabel

  The Burr Type XII distribution has many applications in several fields including economics and finance. A new four-parameter distribution, called the Gamma-Exponentiated Burr Type XII distribution is presented. The new distribution can be applied to the same areas and should perform better in describing more complicated datasets. Some statistical properties of the new distribution including cumulative distribution function, probability density function, hazard function, moments, skewness and kurtosis are presented. Maximum likelihood estimation technique is used to estimate that model parameters. We provide an application to real data to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed distribution. We also compare the distribution to other similar distributions to demonstrate its performance relative to those.

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  The Impact of Anxiety on Students and Possible Coping Mechanisms

  Maureen Adaire Kadel

  Anxiety is a complicated experience that can take a toll on students’ overall mental health and education. Students struggling with anxiety often feel stressed, leading to the development of negative coping mechanisms. This project examines the role anxiety plays in college students’ lives and the positive coping mechanisms that may help.

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  The Impact of Diagnosed Mental Illness on Criminal Behavior and Misconduct in Prison Environments

  Carina M. Albrecht, Riley R. Patterson

  This research investigates the association between diagnosed mental illness and its impact on criminal behavior and misconduct within prison settings. This project aims to address the misconceptions surrounding mental illness and examine patterns of prisoner misconduct among those diagnosed with mental disorders who committed violent crimes. This research seeks to provide valuable insights into mental health, crime, and the criminal justice system, and by contributing to the ongoing debate surrounding these issues.