Is opioid addiction really a problem in society? Is this something that can be stopped? What can I do to help? These are all questions I begin to ask myself whenever I turn on the news and see yet another story about an individual or multiple people overdosing on painkillers, heroin, or fentanyl. We are currently in the middle of the worst public health epidemic in our countries history. If you don’t believe that this problem is on the rise then just look around. School teachers, librarians, and even village sanitation workers are given and being trained on how to administer drugs to help reverse an overdose. The underlying contributors to this epidemic would be the pharmaceutical industry and doctors. The intent of this paper is to determine if the manufactures and the doctors are intentionally causing this problem or is it something that they are unaware of.

The senior paper in conjunction with a body of photographic work. 

This paper focuses on do-it-yourself (DIY) venues in New York City. It will begin by providing a historical overview of the state of DIY venues dedicated to emerging art and artists starting in the 1960s and explores the struggles faced by these venues in present day. It concludes with an analysis of the rise and fall of prominent Brooklyn venue The Silent Barn and methods of sustainability for DIY venues to ensure to long-term viability. The research and analysis presented here is to provide context and a useful framework for organizers and others committed to the presence and support of DIY venues everywhere.

An Auto Ethnography based on my experience of elder caregiving for my grandparents and the influence Latino culture has on their care. 

Abstract: On October 20, 2018, I organized and ran a charitable fundraiser in the town of East Fishkill, New York, with three other peers. The fundraiser was created to revitalize a roller hockey rink. In 2008, our town deemed our rink unsafe due to the failure to maintain and upkeep it’s condition. The town was forced to cancel all in-house and travel leagues. Our goal was to earn enough money to restore the rink to a safe condition and reinstitute the leagues and promote more recreational use. Our event involved large community participation in efforts to maximize charitable donations. By revitalizing the leagues, we hope to provide the youth and adults in our community with an opportunity to improve their lives. The involvement in organized sports has the power to drastically improve one’s well-being. Further research explores the effects that team sports has on someone’s mental and physical health, educational influence and opportunity, and how participation provides an outlet for safe activity which can steer a person away from drugs and alcohol. I chose to participate in the fundraiser because I’ve been playing organized hockey since a young age. I’ve learned the importance of teamwork, communication, hard-work, and dedication which I implemented through each phase in our event. I hope to give others the same opportunity I had.  

Abstract   I have analyzed literature to examine the following claim; the acceptance of Greece into the European Monetary Union masked their underlying economic structural issues. This paper will particularly focus on building the historical evidence behind why Greece had a weak economy up to the point where they were accepted into the EMU. After empirical research on the history of the Greek economy, I’ve come to understand why their economy has fallen so rapidly and why they’ve come to owe so much debt. In doing so I came across a series of  specific underlying economic issues that served as contributing factors in my case to prove that the European Monetary Union acceptance of Greece temporarily masked crucial economic struggles such as high public debt, low investment (FDI/private) and low international competitiveness. After unpacking the timeline that has brought Greece to what I believe was a predicted state of being, I happen to find that the acceptance into the EMU has not only been overlooked, but also highlighted such instability onto a larger scale. Systematic failures within the EMU contributed to the economic failures associated with Greece and many more EMU countries. Specifically, that they take away an individual country’s ability to adjust its own exchange rate (devalue). The analyzation of Greece’s history, economic policies and internal structure will determine why the country was realistically unfit to join the Eurozone.  

This project is ultimately meant to make audiences think: to think about art, think about themselves, think about our culture, think about the world we live in, and think about human nature. As humans, we are complicated mentally and emotionally. We want peace, yet we can't stay away from judgment and aggressions based on our differences as a whole.   We're all different; that's a fact. Diversity is one of our greatest assets, but with that, we must learn to coexist and fully learn how to work together towards a happier life. We live in a world where conflict surrounds us. This idea planted the seed that grew into Dyad. Through the interactions of three distinct characters, the mechanics of one brain will be unpacked and performed through modern dance, gestural movement, and physical acting. Although verbal communication can be fantastic and exchange many thoughts and ideas easily, physical and gestural movement can speak volumes to audiences. We react viscerally to certain things without the use of verbal text because they break down our guards and resonate with us in our hearts. Dyad invites the audience on a ride through laughs, tensions, and explosive emotion as these characters experience their own emotions, encounter new ones, and try to live harmoniously..  

  Abstract This paper is about labor unions and how it has an impact on workers rights. No matter what part of the world you live in you should have a labor union and should be entitled to your workers rights. What about the part-time workers? So just because they’re part-time their not entitled to a labor union? We will definitely talk about that throughout the paper as well. We as people living in the society that exists today should really know our rights as workers, and be entitled to labor unions no matter if you’re part-time, full-time, or per diem. We need people to save our jobs and defend us so we can provide for our families for a long time. Labor Unions are there to help people when they get into some really deep problems or even to fight for their wages to become higher. In all we as a society need labor unions for both part-time and full-time workers. Labor Unions also help to protect workers from mistreatment by their workers.

The United States is made up of 50 states: 3,007 counties filled with various cultures, beliefs, and fundamental ideals. Consequently, there are millions of untold stories, scattered across this vast nation. Each story plays an important role in the larger narrative that is our country’s history. In recent years, the United States has become more and more divided by politics wherein different communities fail to have an empathetic understanding of one another. The power of live theatre and music is immeasurable; consequently, the cultural phenomenon of storytelling has increased dramatically in recent years, causing a resurgence of popular folk music to emerge as well. Macabre Americana, a NYC-based folk fusion collective (and developing nonprofit), originally formed to write and share music about the dark side of American history, past and present. However, as we dove into our work of reimagining untold stories from the darker side of American history as single songs, it became clear that there was a gap that needed to be bridged. General storytelling, documentary-based theatre, and the folk music resurgence haven’t been connected. Until now. Enter The Caravan, Macabre Americana’s new developmental theatre initiative which connects the worlds of theatre and folk music. The Caravan seeks untold, unheard stories, hidden across the diverse cultural landscape of the United States. Through the power of music and spoken word,  The Caravan reimagines those stories in developmental theatre workshops and presents them in a public forum. By reimagining the true stories of the people who have lived them, featuring casts of the people who keep them, The Caravan envisions drawing a new map of the United States, not one charted by borders but one connected through cultural understandings, brought to light through the power of storytelling. The following document serves as a detailed guide of The Caravan’s development plan: our history, our product and services, our niche, our marketing vision, operational plan, as well as our funding plan, budget, and samples of our creative and educational work.

Set in the small village of El Dorado in Tunapuna, Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1970s. The story follows three daughters going through the motions of growing up in a country only a decade old. In a society where women are constantly in the cross-fire of consequences of their husband's actions, who will they become? And will they survive at all?