Senior Independent Study Theses from 2022
Building Youth Power To Transform Education: Exploring A Detroit Area Teenage Activist Organization, Harry Susalla
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
What Do College Students Know About Animal Trafficking?, Kennedy M. Tanner
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Puffins, The Charismatic Clowns Of The Sea: Examining The Relationship Between Community Identity And The Social Construction Of Animals, Megan Henry Tuennerman
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Mommy Issues: An Investigation Into How Social Systems Affect Single Mothers And The Adolescent Experience Of Their Children, Paige Gleason Williams
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Does Having A Birth Plan Impact Your Birth Experience? A Deeper Look Into Birth Plans, Birth Assistants/Attendants, And The Microbiome In Birth Experiences, Elijah Winfield
Department: Biology; Sociology and Anthropology
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2021
Narratives of Heritage: Gender, Representation, and Diversity at the First Ladies National Historic Site, Annelisea Brand
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Exploring Risk, Uncertainty, and Ambiguity under the lens of the Entrepreneurial Day Trader, Jerry L. Bronson
Department: Business Economics; Sociology and Anthropology
Liberté, Égalité, Paternité: Understanding the French anti-gay and anti-reproductive technology movement, La Manif pour tous, Elizabeth Cotton
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; French and Francophone Studies
Can Climate Fiction Novels Inspire Social Change? A Literary and Empirical Ecocritical Analysis, Claire Davidson
Department: English; Sociology and Anthropology
Music-making and Identity: Constructing and Collaborating on the Musicians' Self in Bluegrass Bands, Michael Dean
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
"Love is a Bulletproof Vest": Protest as an Exploration of Women’s Right to the City, Sarah Foley Duran
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
“A Big Opportunity for Everyone to not Hide Those Beautiful Bodies”: Building Community Among Women of Color in the Body Positivity Movement on Instagram, Lilia Federico
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Visiting Spooks and Specters: The Ghost Tourism Industry of Colonial Williamsburg, JoAnna Fowler
Department: History; Sociology and Anthropology
Defeating the COVID-19 Infodemic on Twitter: A SIP Agent-Based Model of Rumor Propagation and Truth Bot Intervention, Zhen Guo
Department: Computer Science; Sociology and Anthropology
Trying to “Do No Harm”: Empathy’s Relationship with Medical Education, Cydney Grace Hall
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Collecting as Seva and Decolonizing Display: Art Collectors in the Sikh American Diaspora, Saeed Husain
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
“That Was the Anomaly Year!”: An Exploration of School Discipline and Disproportionality During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Jonah Kadens
Department: Education; Sociology and Anthropology
“We Need Your Help”: The Rhetorical Construction of the Citizen Detective in True Crime Podcast Jensen and Holes: The Murder Squad, Amelia A. Kemp
Department: Communication Studies; Sociology and Anthropology
Adding to the Narrative: Stories of the Holocaust through Portraiture and the Museum, Marloes Krabbe
Department: Art and Art History; Sociology and Anthropology
Birth Work, Reproductive Justice, and Communities of Care, Hannah Lindsay Lane-Davies
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Fabric and Flesh: A Tactile Exploration of Personhood and Becoming, Ella Lang
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Reconstructing Home and Family: An Analysis of the Family Life Experiences of Queer Central Americans Living in the United States., Cesar O. Lopez
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Socializing Sons: How Lesbian Parents Engage With Masculinity While Raising Their Sons, Laura Isabel Montoya
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Collective Memory and Community in the Sri Lankan Diaspora of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA, Anura Namachchivaya
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Small Town Queers: The Intersections of Gender Identity and Regional Location, Hayden Ruairí Nolan
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Experience of Black Police Officers and an Examination of whether the Black Community Supports Them, Camryn Pollard
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
What Are Perfect Places, Anyway?: Exploring the New Zealand Government's Approach to Youth Suicide Prevention, Olivia C. Proe
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
New Space, No Place: Navigating Experiences in a Predominately White Higher Education Institution as Latinx Students, Priscilla Ramos Rico
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
"MIXED-ISH" Exploring the Racial Identity of Black/White Biracial College Students, Keonn Scott
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Artifacts of Culture: Encounters with Multivocal Objects in Margaret of Austria’s 16th-Century Library, Jonas Short
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Art and Art History
The Nurses and Mothering (NAM) Study: Intensive Mothering and the Dual Caregiving Role of Nurse Mothers in the Shadow of the Coronavirus-19 Pandemic, Sabina Beth Skolnick
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Reimagining Injustice Education: An Analysis of Pedagogy in Indigenous Museums, Tara Elizabeth Strauch
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Running with Responders: Exploring Anthropological Contributions to Disaster Response and An Ethnographic Study of First Response Culture, Diane Elise Tierney
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Global Ramifications of the Black Lives Matter movement, Perry E. Worthey
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2020
Holding Hands with a Privatized Care Industry: The Paradoxical Relationship Between the Motives of Senior Care Workers and the Bureaucratic and Market-Oriented Structures in which They Are Embedded, Katherine H. Atwell
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
What Factors Affect the Perceptions of Higher Education Among the Hispanic Communities?” Do Hispanics Think That Higher Education Is a Reality or a Dream? and Why Do They Think So?, Fabio Barreto
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
A New Generation Rising Like the Sun, but Who Directs the Light?: An Analysis of the Sunrise Movement’s Meteoric Rise and Limited Scope, Benjamin J. Bridgman
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
A New Perspective on Poverty Alleviation: Evaluating Microfinance Programs Through Social Impact Indicators, Robert Driscoll
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
“Sometimes You Want to Just Run Away”: Participation and Mobilization of the New Sanctuary Movement, Elyse Echegaray
Department: History; Sociology and Anthropology
Slender Waists and Coral Lips: An Examination of Gender Construction in Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty Fairy Tales, Isadora M. Hetrick
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
A Hidden Curriculum: Understanding the Impact of Emotional Labor on Elementary School Teachers’ Self Identities, Stephanie Hilton
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
“All Bodies Are Good Bodies”: How Anti-Diet Culture Activists Use Instagram to Challenge Diet Culture Norms, Miranda James
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Continuation of Violence: Analyzing the Retraumatization of Incarcerated Survivors of Domestic Violence and Evaluating the Potential of a “Trauma-Informed” Prison Model, Eliana Kahn
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
What are My Rites?: Exploring Tahara as a Ritual Process in Judaism, Kaitlyn Khayat
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Religious Studies
Framing White Supremacy: The Creation of Collective Identity Over YouTube, Henry A. Mai
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Durkheim’s Day in Court: A Sociological Analysis of Supreme Court Cases Concerning Conditions of Confinement Under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, Elizabeth Main
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Parks for the People: A Comparative Analysis of Diversity Engagement between Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Yosemite National Park, Cameron Miller
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Hope and Struggle: Towards a Socialist Internationalism for the Rural Working Class, Robyn O. Newcomb
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Dream, Believe, Achieve: The Study of Mentoring and the Impact It Has on Student Athlete, Kylie Orr
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Gatekeeping in the Transgender Community, Kevin V. Ortiz
Department: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Sociology and Anthropology
Animals at the Fair: An Investigation Into Culturally Relevant Curriculum in Wooster City and Northwestern Elementary School Math Classrooms, Olivia R. Poindexter
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
An Ethnographic look at Organizational Culture within the Children's Defense Fund, Alyssa Noelle Rotte
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Lost in Excavation: A Study of Ancient Greek Burial Artefacts and How They Are Displayed in Museums in the Context of Their History, Nina Ruth Hooper Rusmore
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Classical Studies
Wading Through the Gene Pool: Genetic Counseling and its Principles, Sidney Senita
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Is it Just a Language Exam? An Analysis of the Test D'Évaluation De Français as a Marker of Republican Integration, Margaret Maeve Simmering
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; French and Francophone Studies
AgriCulture: Selective Strategies One Cooperatives Uses as a Mediator for its Amish Growers, Elizabeth Stanis
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Stitching Society Back Together: An Analysis of Post-Genocide Restorative Justice and the Prospects for Fostering Interpersonal Trust in Rwanda and Guatemala, Emily Stoehr
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Political Science
“Inner Lives: Looking at how Incarcerated Parents Educate and Raise their Children from Behind Bars.”, Akwia S. Tilton
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Why People work for Nonprofits: The Biases and Effect of Staff Retention within a Boys and Girls Club in Western Michigan, Audrey VanderVelde
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
"How We got Here": Interpresting First-Generation Latinx Students' Transitions to College, Jocelynn Vega
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2019
"Different Ways of Being American": Food as Culture and Host Parenting in a Foreign Exchange Program, Isabel Hannah Bonhomme
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
The Frontier Shifts of Edges Becoming centers: Gentrification Challenging Neighborhood Identity, Anthony M. Cisneros
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Examining Representation of Women and People of Color in Crime Drama Series, Margaret Clark
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Aura and Ethnicity at Yunnan Nationalities Museum and Yunnan Nationalities Village: An Investigation into Museum Representation and Reflections on Identity, Sue Stuart Cook
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Chinese Studies
Opening Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise: The Work of Art and its Contexts between Renaissance Florence and Modern Museum Culture, Ilaria Novella Crum
Department: Art and Art History; Sociology and Anthropology
What it Means to be Lithuanian in America And What Russia’s Got to Do With it: A Study of Ethnic Identity Formation Among Later Generations in a Diasporic Community, Marija Cyvas
Department: Russian Studies; Sociology and Anthropology
What's Going On, Washington, D.C.? An analysis of gentrification and its effect on pregnancy and childbirth in the nation's capital, Monét Simone Davis
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Fighting for Freedom: A Sociological Study of Violent versus Nonviolent Forms of Social Movement as Reflected in the Writings of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King., Jesse Booth DeWitt
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
“Marblescape of Memory”: An Examination of Aesthetics, Identity Construction, and Museum Display through the Appropriation of Ancient Greek Sculpture in Neoclassical England, Presley Feezell
Department: Art and Art History; Sociology and Anthropology
“Germinating the Future Through Sustainable Architecture”: An Ethnographic Study of a Sustainable House of Worship, Jackson McCamic Feinknopf
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Examining How Social Perception and Society Affect the Construction of Self-Identites Among Documented and Undocumented Latinx Young Adults in the Trump Era, Maria E. Garza
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Erosion of the Professional Housewife Model: Changing Marriage and Career Aspirations of Japanese University-Educated Women, Rachel Erika Ho
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Ecological and Social Drivers and Impacts of Farm Diversification in Northern and Central Ohio, Remi Katayama
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
21st Century Technology Meets Old Time Gender Ideals: The Role of Gender in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, Megan J. Lasersohn
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Civil Communication Pedagogy for a More Diverse and Inclusive Society: A Case Study of Woostories, Jisou "Armel" Lee
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
White Superhero, Black Sidekick: A study of Representation of Black people in Cartoons and Comics and the Effect on One’s Self-Perception, Lalah Lewis
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
It's What You Make It! Modified and Queer: A Feminist Look Into Queer Experience with Tattoos, Hailey Elizabeth Malzeke
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
“Honey, where is my super suit?” Audience Response to the 2018 Marvel Black Panther Film Based on Varied Intersectional Identities of Ethnicity, Race, and Gender, CJ Mandell
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The School Resource Officer in the United States Education System: An Investigation of the Perceptions of SROs Roles, Effects and the Militarization of Schools, Trey Miller
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself: Understanding the Conservative Christian Perspective on Homosexuality and Welfare, Larissa S. Myers
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Changing Forms and Meaning of Work for Amish Women, Megan Myers
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
You Are What You Eat: Regression Analysis of the Social Determinants of Diet, Callie Ogland-Hand
Department: Mathematics; Sociology and Anthropology
NAGPRA and Native American Voices: Collaboration between Museums and Source Communities, Fiona Powell
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Ritualization, Education, and Time Travel: An Ethnographic Look at Visitor Experience within Modern and Neoclassical Art Galleries at The Cleveland Museum of Art, Myra Marie Praml
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
From Fiction to Reality: An Examination of Attitudes Towards Moral and Biological Human Enhancements, Jack Rider
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Real Life Impact of Digital Feminist Movements, Sophie Schrader
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Recognize Thy Neighbor: Conceptualizing the Nuances of the Religious Identity of Muslims Living in America, Bekah Smith
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Between Two Homes: Identity Formation in Transracial Adoptions, Sachi Lian Toepp
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Culture is Not a Costume: The Appropriation of the War Bonnet as a Form of Colonial Oppression, Emma West
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2018
Identity in the Straight Edge Movement: An Exploration of Ideology, Individuality, and Solidarity, Stuart Ayers
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The New Face of News: The Manifestation of Partisan Bias and the Fragmentation of Political Identity, William C. Bates
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
"Kill the Indian, and Save the Man": Examining the Assimilation Tactics Used Against Native Americans by the United States Government Through the Implementation of Boarding Schools, Molly Campbell
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Everyday Acts of Amish Resistance: Contextualizing Patterns of Antimicrobial Susceptibility in a Small-Scale Agricultural Setting, Geoffrey Carney-Knisely
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Sociology and Anthropology
In the Eye of the Consumer: A Sociocultural Analysis on Food Choice, Pagona N. Duda
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Speaker of Words: A Linguistic Examination of Science Fiction, Invented Language, and Society, Sierra Fletcher
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Opportunity to Succeed: An Analysis of First-Generation, Latinx College Student Aspirations, Family Expectations, and Definitions of Success, Nancy Garzon
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
I've Been in the Storm So Long: African American History and the Journey Toward Equality Through the Lens of the DuSable Museum of African American History, Grace N. Hodges
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Adoption Across Cultures: A Comparative Analysis of Adoption Attitudes between the United States and Honduras, Sidney A. Irias
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
“Discourse Begins in a Book Club”: An Analysis of Online Book Club Literary Discussion of Race and Gender in The Handmaid’s Tale and The Underground Railroad, Catherine Lockwood
Department: English; Sociology and Anthropology
A Rumination on Identity Politics with Durkheim and Rousseau, Austin Maffei
Department: Political Science; Sociology and Anthropology