SUNY College at New Paltz: Recent submissions
Now showing items 1-20 of 648
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Creating a sustainable planet: how fast fashion is contributing to textile wasteConsumers have been trained by the fashion industry and capitalistic pursuits to buy items they do not need and may never use, yet the appeal to have that item in the moment is so overtly compelling, it feels like a need to survive. Clothing and textiles are a gold-mine for companies to target consumers' habits in over-consumption and drive the company’s financial success and profits. Between consumers' materialistic lifestyles and companies' pursuits to push over-consumption, humans are witnessing record levels of environmental damages with our waste accumulation. The fashion and retail industries' clear focus on monetary gain and success, leading to the increased interest in fast fashion methods of production, is fueling the destruction of our planet. We are reaching a point of irreversible climate deterioration and a major factor in that is the mass amount of waste produced. As we progress through a time where the success of fast fashion companies and its waste augmentation are simultaneously and exponentially on the rise, taking a closer look at your local communities and how personal decisions impact the bigger issues is imperative to spark the change that our planet needs.
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The role of visual art in improving the quality of life for people with Tourettes SyndromeIn this body of work, I will explore the application of visual art in mitigating symptoms and enriching the quality of life for people with Tourettes. I will draw upon personal experiences, medical and psychological research, others’ experiences, and broader understandings of social dynamics to inform my argument. I will present what I have learned through a series of drawings and paintings, which will summarize the contents of my research paper and illustrate my progress as I deepen my understanding of my topic. I will conclude my body of work with an argument in favor of accessibility in the arts, providing more individuals with my neurotype an avenue of healing and productivity.
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Evolutionary explanations of the trolley problem: evolutionary origins of human moralityThe Trolley Problem was originally described by philosopher Phillipa Foot (1967). The problem starts with a runaway train that could go one of two ways; if you (the operator) do nothing, then the trolley will kill five people (track A), but if you switch the tracks (track B) it would kill one person. There has been further research about the individual used for the action based track that only would kill one civilian. Past research using this paradigm has examined various factors, such as the age of potential victims and the relationship to the operator. From an evolutionary perspective, advancing one’s genes into the future is something of a bottom line. This can happen directly, through reproduction, or indirectly via helping kin. Past studies have shown that various factors come into consideration when choosing track A or B: age, gender of the person on the track and the participant, genetic relatedness, and relationship status. The evolutionary moral perspective provides a powerful framework for examining all the different factors that affect these decisions within one model.
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The end of Roe: how the conservative legal movement eroded protections for abortion and contraceptive careMany battles over reproductive rights have occurred in the legal sphere, behind the scenes of mainstream politics, through litigation and interest group influence over politicians and the courts. This research will focus on the conservative legal movement against the rights to abortion and contraception. The paper will be divided into three sections: the first will establish the major organizations and religious influences involved in the conservative movement, their coalition-building strategies, and the challenges they have faced. The second will examine the incrementalist approach of slowly chipping away at abortion and contraception rights, with focus on limiting financial access and increasing allowance for government regulations. The third will discuss the movement’s attempts to completely overturn Roe v. Wade (1973), culminating in the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) decision, and the future of reproductive autonomy in law. The conservative legal movement has been incredibly successful in limiting access to reproductive healthcare and reversing Roe, but now faces an uncertain future.
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The artistic influence of American Deaf culture and heritage, explored through visual arts educationThis thesis examines the combination of visual arts education with deaf studies. It explores teaching art lessons about deaf culture and heritage to students of all ages. There are three lesson plans included each with a Deaf artist as the inspiration for the project and the focus of the lesson. These lessons have been taught to students ranging from kindergarten up to college students. This exploration led to the discovery of my teaching philosophy which is included in the end to discuss what I will take away from this thesis into my future career. Keywords: Bachelor of Science Visual Arts Education, Ceramics, Deaf studies, Deaf culture and heritage, American Sign Language, Ceramics, Collage, Mixed Media
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A depiction of Black people as villains in western cinema - an examination from the 1920's to present day on how these roles have shaped the perception of Black peopleThroughout the years, media has been, and continues to be, a powerful tool used to spread knowledge and awareness about different groups of people, cultures, social issues, and other topics of societal importance. This study aims to examine the perception of members of the Black community because of stereotypes endorsed and encouraged by Western cinema from the 1920’s to present day. By further countersigning the misrepresentation of Black people, Western cinema has impacted the ways in which the Black community is negatively viewed in the present and has encouraged other forms of media, such as magazine advertisements and children’s cartoon shows, to adopt the misconceptions of the members of the community. As a result of early depictions of the Black community in Western cinema, we see the significant damage done by various forms of media in how Black people are perceived, damage that is still trying to be corrected, even now.
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Indigenous women's activism in preserving Native American education in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesThis thesis examines Indigenous women who fought against federal Indian policies that aimed to eliminate Indigenous cultures and tribal sovereignty. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Sarah Winnemucca, Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonin), and Laura Cornelius Kellogg fought to break down white assimilationist schooling and bring education back to Native nations. Their political work, writing, and leadership highlight how Native women, although seen as subsidiary in white society at the time because of both their race and gender, were at the forefront of Indian political issues. Keywords: Bachelor of Science Early Childhood/Childhood Education, History (B-6), Native, Indigenous, Sarah Winnemucca, Zitkala-Sa, Laura Cornelius Kellogg
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Nuclear energy: a potential steppingstone to a renewable futureThe global energy system continues to be primarily reliant upon fossil fuels which now conclusively are the main component of climate change, as well as a significant contributor to global health impacts through air, water and land pollution severely impacting our communities across the globe. While clean energy is making its mark on the world, it doesn't currently have the infrastructure to make it a globally dominated energy source. Solutions for energy sources that can quickly be utilized for a clean energy transition are essential to shift away from fossil fuels. A relatively clean and high output energy source that can serve as part of this transition exists on Earth and everywhere in the cosmos: nuclear energy. This paper will examine current nuclear technologies, emerging technologies with a focus on fission and fusion energy, issues and benefits of nuclear energy, and confronting public perceptions about nuclear energy.
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Why are African-Americans with dysphagia post-stroke having higher rates of PEG placement?Throughout the history of this country, systemic issues have trickled into certain communities impacting them severely. Whether this be with environmental threats, poverty, inadequate access to quality health care, educational inequality, or lack of employment opportunities. All these problems have been deeply programmed into society and our institutions. They have been beneficial for some groups, but detrimental for others. One group of people who have been harmed by these systemic inequalities, are African Americans. This thesis will explore these disparities as it relates to African-American stroke survivors with dysphagia, specifically the higher occurrences of percutaneous endoscopic gastronomy tube (PEG) placement in this community. With a review of various literature, four factors were examined as possible contributing variables: residential segregation, insurance, implicit bias, and severity of stroke.
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The problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion and public relationsThis project emphasizes uprising issues often perpetuated by public relations professionals on behalf of corporations called “woke-washing.” “Woke-washing” describes the hypocrisy of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies established by corporations and the true impact of these policies on Black employees and social justice. These discrepancies are detected by analyzing how messaging created by public relations professionals about corporate social initiatives that are made to address social justice issues, differ from the internal treatment of Black employees. They can also be detected by comparing the history, roots, and present functions of DEI and diversity management. To emphasize the issues between companies and their messages about social justice, one must discuss the impact of woke-washing issues within corporations like Alphabet (Google), CrossFit, and Amazon. Ultimately, this study seeks to identify the issue of woke-washing, define key concepts related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and analyze present case studies of corporations holding and creating hypocritical policies or statements. Then will present personal takeaways from the findings in this study.
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First generation college students in communication disorders: perspectives, strengths, and challengesThe goal of this study was to investigate the experiences of first-generation college students, specifically within the CMD major, including their: perspectives, challenges, possible advantages, and unique characteristics. Method-The participants who are in this study were a total of five first-generation college students in the Communication Disorders major at SUNY New Paltz. The interview was in-person, and audio recorded. In this qualitative study, data were analyzed for patterns and compared to previously collected data about the experiences of first-generation college students in other majors. Results- Disadvantages found in this study included pressure/high expectations, isolation, and confusion about the academic process. Advantages included high motivation, independence, work ethic and family support. Unique characteristics included the graduate school application process, science, and maintaining high grades due to the competitive field. Conclusion- It was found that the participants shared similar stress factors about the graduate school application, maintaining high grades due to a competitive field, and the science aspect of how it wasn’t anticipated to be so much science.
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How childhood nature exposure can influence well-being and connection to nature in adulthoodThe current study examines the impact of exposure to nature on well-being, and the possible moderating effects of childhood nature experiences (CNE) and adult connection to nature (CN) upon this relationship. The study is a two-group experiment, in which participants were randomly assigned either to a control group (spending 10 minutes in an outdoor space with little green space) or a nature exposure group (like the control group but surrounded by nature).
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Strongheart: honor among thieves (thesis excerpts)Dip's Bar and Inn was the center of the town of Westpond. The town was settled four hundred years ago by elves fleeing war across the sea - people who had nothing when they arrived, people who could only take the damp clay around them and mold a new community together. The foundation that became the bar was already there when they arrived. They said the bar had to have been built first, though it might not have always been one, because it was near enough to the water's edge for the rest of the town to rise up around it. As Westpond grew, the old homes nearest the pond became known as the Eastside. The houses were crammed together, the oldest right along the lip of the water, often rebuilt or patched haphazardly after crumbling from poor and hasty construction. The worst of them were rough-looking and made of clay, like mounds molded by giants' hands. The best often housed three or four families to a room, and the entire Eastside, right up to Dip's door, smelled, tasted, felt: damp- like the swampy pond.
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“Romantic Painter”: MFA Thesis - Painting & DrawingMy exhibition, "Romantic Painter", consists of several parts: First, a large painting, made to-scale with the original "Death of Sardanapalus." Second, a series of walnut ink drawings, each abstracted from an aspect of Delacroix's painting. Third, a video appropriated from a 1980 BBC documentary/drama of Delacroix's life, called "The Restless Eye." The audio is excerpted from the original educational film and the video (20 minutes of me dressed up, role playing as Delacroix) is my own. To make this body of work, I chased painting -- a specific painting, one of the biggest and grandest I could find -- to the extent of my abilities. What I want you to know is this: I am Eugene Delacroix. I am on a Romantic quest to make the last painting, the painting that will solve painting and will end history. I am Sardanapalus. I am heartbroken. I am burning down my palace. I am a 32-year old woman living in Upstate New York. A fire happened and I survived it. History isn’t over. I am failing.
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Singular a novel-in-progressJosiah Bentman, née Lenny Sargent, is about to die. Bentman is the leader of the largest right-wing, white supremacist organization in the world. He is anonymous, off the grid, lives under the radar, and has hundreds of thousands of followers the world over. Though he is not a public persona, he has more power than any political figure on the planet, which he has used to build an army of devoted followers. For decades, while building his cohort, he has only communicated via documents dropped in a secret mailbox and more recently via a private internet server. These documents are referred to as The Missives, which are transcribed by a chosen few then published online. Now he’s communicating with his followers directly. Singular details the rise of Lenny Sargent—a boy once untethered, angry, uncertain of his heritage, estranged from humanity, consumed by his anger—and how he becomes the man, Josiah Bentman.
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Music therapy for adults with dementia and their caregivers rapid reviewThe purpose of this thesis is to explore the effectiveness of music therapy in the care of person with dementia (PWD) and their caregivers by reviewing the results of research published from 2017-2021.
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CNN classification with blending mode data augmentationConvolutional neural networks (CNNs) have revolutionized the task of image classification, a frequently occurring computer vision problem. Progress in network architecture has been the leading factor in this advancement, with the evolution of deeper networks with fewer parameters. Alongside CNN network advancements, dataset augmentations have been implemented to expand the learnable data the network can model from. Limited dataset size is a major issue in building neural network models, particularly due to the problem of overfitting, which arises from models fitting training data too well, at the expense of capturing general trends in data, leading to large test errors. In this thesis, we augment available image data by implementing blending modes to expose the full tonal range contained in each training image. Additionally, we implement a horizontal flip transformation to create mirror versions of training images. These data augmentations are shown to reduce overfitting in CNN models. We explore different combinations of blending mode layers to maximize the validation accuracy of the network model.
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Modern garbage: an eco-critical perspective on trash, art, commodities, and Duchamp's ReadymadesIn the twentieth century, trash was drastically re-invented to become a daily fixture of modern life. Art became increasingly difficult to define, while objects and commodities were produced like never before. Most of what I'm about to discuss in this thesis has to do with objects: whether categorized as trash, art, or commodity
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Let these birds outThe following collection of original poems consists of new pieces written this autumn as well as revised versions of pieces I began when I was fifteen years old. Bits of my younger self are preserved in this thesis. My work is inspired by the raw, often vicious nature of Richard Siken’s poetry whose words tear open the angsty adolescent inside of me and get to the very heart of all pain. Recently, I’ve been touched by Maggie Smith’s work, its brazen honesty wrapped in eloquence. The concise yet poignant observations of Mary Oliver, whose work is seemingly always bent toward finding beauty in life, certainly played a part in developing the themes of my project. I shrink at the idea of trying to explain what this collection is about. In the thesis, I attempt to paint portraits, to capture the essence of the people, places, and elements of my environment that have most influenced my identity up until now. I suppose it conveys my evolving attitudes toward family and friendship and spirituality and the imminent end of everything. When I was younger, I was perpetually anxious about lack of control, death, and the end of the world. But by the end of the thesis, I have perhaps found some peace in the notion of apocalypse, of everything falling apart. I suppose this thesis may be an ode to optimistic nihilism, accepting that nothing really matters, and I should fully embrace the immediate world around me while I still can. And I suppose it’s maybe about birds. I did not realize that birds were such a significant theme in my life until I put these poems together. As Abraham Maslow says, “To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.” It sounds cliche, but I’ve found great meaning in this. I quite adore being alive, in this ordinary place. I wouldn’t know how to write about anything else.