Abstract: When a child faces high levels of stress over time, they are at risk of decreased happiness and poorer mental health. A critical role of a school counselor is to help provide an educational environment that promotes a balance between academic achievement and the emotional needs of students. According to Bernay et al. (2016) childhood may be the ideal time for Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) since it is when major brain development occurs. MBI can provide a strong positive foundation for a child’s future mental health. Implementing mindfulness during the school day teaches children techniques that can be used throughout their lives and help minimize stress and better handle stressful situations (Harpin et al., 2016). The primary goal of this presentation is to analyze the existing literature on Mindfulness-Based Interventions with children in school-based settings. This intervention typically involves small groups that focus on topics such as mindfulness, friendship, bullying, fear, change, family, and personal strengths. Based on the findings from this literature review, the presenter will provide recommendations and best practices for mental health providers on implementing MBI with children and adolescents. It is believed the findings will encourage the use of MBI in a school setting for students as an option to aid stress reduction.

Introduction. Over the past decade there has been an increase in the number of Black student athletes (SAs) at the collegiate level. However, there is a lack of representation in the athletic training staff responsible for caring for this diverse population. As the United States becomes a more diverse country, the field of athletic training has not. There is a growing need for Black female athletic trainers in all settings of athletic training.

Hypothesis. It is hypothesized that there is a negative impact on Black females in athletic training programs due to racism that they face throughout their didactic and clinical experiences.

Methods. Using Google Forms, an anonymous survey was distributed via email and social media postings across various platforms. The survey includes questions related to participants’ personal experiences with racism and sexism during their time in the athletic training programs. Descriptive data are also collected in this survey to gain a better understanding of the participants’ demographics.

Conclusion. This study has received IRB approval and the survey has been distributed via email and social media platforms. The next step is to compile and review the data in March 2021. It is expected that the results will help the athletic training profession to better understand how Black female athletic training students can be supported during their educational experiences.

Congenital muscular torticollis (CMT) is an abnormal tightness in one of an infant’s sternocleidomastoid muscles leading to limited cervical range of motion. Treatment includes intensive physical therapy with stretching, strengthening programs, and repositioning programs which are frequently implemented at the patient’s home. In some cases, a temporary cervical orthosis is applied to discourage the head tilt. If applied judiciously, these therapies often yield positive outcomes, with restoration of range of motion of the sternocleidomastoid before fibrosis of the muscle and other potentially serious sequelae can occur. However, CMT is often coupled with plagiocephaly, a moderate to severe craniofacial asymmetry. In these cases, a Cranial Remolding Orthosis (CRO) is recommended to treat the asymmetry by encouraging skull growth in the appropriate directions, while the other treatments remain to separately address the muscular issues. Many of the torticollis treatments must be done with the CRO removed, which can decrease the efficacy of both treatments. One proposed option is to expand the function of a CRO to incorporate a built-in extension (CRO-E) designed to provide a gentle, continuous stretch for the 23 hours per day the device is worn by the patient. This design would allow for concurrent treatment of the plagiocephaly and torticollis, and increased treatment times for both. With this study, we will conduct a review of the existing treatments to address the paired conditions of CMT and plagiocephaly and analyze where a dual treatment would provide benefit to the patient. We will then propose a hypothetical treatment plan utilizing the CRO-E, and provide rationale for its usage. We hope to demonstrate that the CRO-E has potential to serve as an effective treatment for both plagiocephaly and CMT.

Machine learning technology has enabled voice-driven virtual assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri to become commonplace in society. Unanimously, popular voice assistants use female-sounding voices as the default. As these computer-generated voices evolve to sound more human, the potential for harmful female subservience stereotypes to be perpetuated increases. That is to say, the sound of the voice itself may further the stereotype that women belong in servant and secretarial roles.

This project aims to understand to what extent do linguistic features of the disembodied voices perpetuate female subservience stereotypes. The background research done for this study acknowledges marketing advantages of leveraging the female voice for sales and the steps that technology companies have already taken to mitigate explicit cases of gender bias (largely involving flirting or sexual promiscuity).

To test for gender bias on a linguistic level, this study analyzes a set of responses from Siri and Alexa in order to 1) identify the average vocal pitch of each response in order to spot correlations with the range of the perceived attractive pitch for a female voice and 2) determine if pitch fluctuates depending on the sentiment level of each response.

Findings showed that on average, the pitch of Siri and Alexa's voices correlates with the average pitch of what is perceived as an attractive human female voice. This stands true regardless of if the response was fact, opinion, or emotion-based. It also plays into preconceived notions about attractive women being best suited for secretarial roles. These results support that traits within the disembodied female voices themselves can perpetuate common female subservience stereotypes.

In 1815, when the United States moved to control and occupy what was then the “Northwest Territory”, thousands of native peoples held sovereignty in the region that now includes Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Scattered among these indigenous nations were more than fifty creole villages. Residents were primarily the mixed-race or “métis” offspring of French fur traders and their Algonquin wives. They, too, inhabited this land before “the border crossed them,” as historian Lucy Eldersveld Murphy has said. This thesis project seeks to answer the question: How did the mixed race, bicultural inhabitants of the Western Great Lakes respond and adapt to the pressures of Americanization in the nineteenth century? My presentation will focus on the creole community of “La Baye des Puants,” now Green Bay, Wisconsin, as it navigated the treacherous waters of settler colonialism. In particular, I will focus on the experience of one individual, a Franco-Menominee woman named Mary Hobart Williams, who left behind two personal diaries now held at the University of Green Bay. The terse, quotidien recollections of this farm wife demonstrate that her education, labor, ties to diverse kin, and most of all her ability to adapt and embrace change allowed her to remain stable and successful there until her death in the 1880s, despite her partially indigenous heritage. The purpose of this project is to complicate dichotomies such as Native/Colonizer, Colored/White, Victim/Perpetrator, and even Feminine/Masculine, which inhibit our understanding of the colonization process and the lived experiences of people in the borderlands of the Early Republic. Williams’ diaries demonstrate that individuals manipulated their own racial and gender identities, in order to survive in the changing landscape. This does not mean that they disappeared, but rather that they ceased to be “Indian” in the eyes of future generations.