Andrew Jezisek
Untold Secrets - The Story of the Merzbachs
Erika Berroth, Modern Languages and Literature (German)

The Second World War was a conflict that saw widespread human rights abuses, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Millions of people were forcibly deported to Nazi Concentration Camps where a gruesome fate awaited. Among those who were victimized by the Nazis was Ludwig Merzbach and his family. Ludwig and his family endured nearly two years of fear inside the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Upon being liberated, the Merzbachs would eventually immigrate to the United States and become professors at institutions such as Southwestern University. This research project tells the story of a Southwestern family’s journey, through primary documents retained by the Merzbachs that were donated to Southwestern University’s Special Collections. Through transcription and translation of these documents, as well as the use of other primary accounts to help with context, we expect to continue to explore their story. This project has already uncovered the role of Ludwig at Theresienstadt, as well as the effect of the camp on Uta’s mental health through writing, but we expect to continue to undercover more as the research continues.

Amanda Gomez & Kirk Zanetti
Nowhere in Africa (2001): Representations of Identities and Migration in German Film
Erika Berroth, International Studies

In her film Nowhere in Africa (2001) German film director Caroline Link uses Stefanie Zweig’s 1995 autobiographical novel of the same title to explore and represent layers of identities and identity formations in several generations of a German Jewish family. Some of the film’s Redlich family members remain in Germany, while others flee Nazi Germany with the help of a Jewish community in Nairobi, Kenia. Using approaches and theories from their areas of expertise, panel participants explore intersecting forms of exclusion or discrimination that become evident as the film represents the Redlich family as German Jews victimized by racism in Nazi Germany, Jettel Redlich as holding prejudice against Africans, and the British colonial forces as holding prejudice against the Jewish refugees - who also are, as Germans, perceived to be “enemy aliens” and locked up in camps. In discussing the development of Redlich family members’ journeys of discovery, panel members explore how our understandings of identities adapt or evolve, connected to personal experiences and comprehension of larger socio-political and cultural systems. Ultimately, studying representations of intersecting forms of discrimination and injustice contributes to the development of anti-racist attitudes in institutions and leaders.

Madison Adams
Supporting the President in a #NotMyPresident Context: Experiences of College Aged Trump Supporters at a Liberal Arts University
Maria Lowe, Sociology and Anthropology

In light of sexual misconduct allegations involving the current president of the United States, this study analyzes the reasons provided by some university students for their continued support of Donald Trump. Relying on ten in-depth, qualitative, semi-structured interviews with college students who align with the president, this paper identifies a three stage model of support. First, students identify their conservative identities as helping to explain their initial support of Trump. Second, given the numerous accusations leveled against the president, students readily use neutralization tactics to counter these claims and rationalize their continued support. Finally, students report that when others become aware of their endorsement of Trump, they respond negatively. However, instead of being dissuaded by these responses, interviewees state they become even more committed in their approval. By identifying this three-stage process and applying Neutralization Theory to better understand it, this paper contributes to the existing sociological literature on the persistence of conservatism in the United States today.

Hannah Bills
Out of the Closet and into Greek Life: The Experiences of Queer Students in Fraternities and Sororities
Maria Lowe, Sociology and Anthropology

There is a paucity of previous work surrounding LGBTQ+ individuals and why they choose to join Greek life organizations, and what their experiences are after they have joined. This sociological study explores the social dynamics and experiences of sexual minority college students on a liberal arts campus in Greek organizations. This paper utilizes sixteen semi-structured, in-depth, interviews of current liberal arts university students who identified as a part of the LGBTQ+ community and were affiliated with Greek organizations on campus, conducted from April to September 2019. These research findings indicate Greek organizations on campus develop queer friendly, neutral, or queer exclusionary reputations, which are informed and reified by experiences of individuals, incidences, and perceived beliefs and social images of such organizations. These reputations affect queer students’ willingness to join. Queer members have had a range of experiences throughout their time joining and in Greek life. These positive and negative experiences have created nuanced impressions and impacts on their identity and self-perception. Lastly, visibility of queer members has the potential to broaden heteronormative Greek culture on campus, by allowing individuals to be seen and validated in relation to their experiences within this inclusive space.

Sam Buehler
Green for Green - (In)equitable Access to Green Spaces
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

A breadth of literature has documented the benefits of green spaces to physical and mental health via pollution filtration, stress reduction, noise reduction, etc. In this economics capstone project, I examine the effects of socioeconomic conditions on access to green spaces, as well as the effects of green spaces on mental and physical health. In my models, I account for variables such as physical health, mental health, poverty, race, education, income, unemployment, urban/rural, etc. I use cross-sectional, census-tract level data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Census Bureau, etc., as well as NDVI imagery to determine the level of access to green spaces within each census tract. I expect to find that lower socioeconomic status results in reduced access to green spaces, and that a higher level of access to green spaces is associated with improved mental and physical health.

Emily Campbell
Indigenous Populations in the War of 1812
Melissa Byrnes, History

I focused on the role indigenous peoples who fought alongside both the British and Americans in the War of 1812. In my paper, I argue that indigenous peoples played a significant role in the outcome of the War of 1812. My research on the War of 1812 is important because it represents the fragile nature of the newly founded United States of America. Moreover, the War of 1812 marked the beginning of the end of Native American culture, as they lost their land and the Americans’ trust. For this project, I consulted many contemporary sources from the Americans and British like correspondence, journals, and governmental records. I also use secondary scholarship from British, Canadian, and American scholars. I concluded that Native American alliances with either British or Americans were not always followed by the entire tribe. Many times, indigenous peoples broke away from their tribe’s official alliance and fought with the side they believed would win. This is interesting because it reveals a deeper level of complexity of the indigenous populations past the stereotypical “savage” image.

Alyssa Case
Dos mujeres y una vaca: the Violence of Displacement on Women
Carlos De Oro, Modern Languages and Literature (Spanish)

This presentation focuses on the themes of violence, gender and movement in Colombia through the Road Movie Dos mujeres y una vaca, directed in 2015 by Efraín Bahamón. I will first address the social-historical context of the film through the lens of the armed conflict in Colombia in order to better understand how the film depicts the theme of violence in relation to gender and movement. Specifically, I will be covering the El Salado Massacre and the related history of the region that led to the events at El Salado, as the film’s turning point is a reference to the incident. Next, I will be covering how the armed conflict has affected people in rural areas, in particular women in rural areas. Finally, I will analyze how Dos mujeres y una vaca, as a neo-realistic Road Movie, relates to this social-historical context and how its use of lighting, simplistic sound design and long shots all contribute to the themes of violence, gender and movement in Colombia.

Rebecca Chastain
Paths, barriers, and girlhood in i/Niña errante/i
Carlos De Oro, Modern Languages and Literature (Spanish)

The unique challenges and experiences of girlhood had gone largely unstudied until the 1990s and 2000s, and there still exists a gap in the application of girlhood studies both to film and to non-western girlhood experiences; conversely, an echoing berth of truly girlhood centric narratives exists within western and international film alike. The 2018 Colombian film i/Niña errante/i, which details the anxieties and rich inner world of a young girl with a degree of respect and empathy found infrequently in film, represents a unique opportunity to apply girlhood studies to a typically unheard narrative—that of a twelve year old orphaned Colombian girl—as well as the untapped medium of film. i/Niña errante/i uses the structure of a buddy road movie to represent the duality of the biological and social journeys a young girl must take from girlhood into womanhood as well as the unique role older women play in the traversing of those paths. The film draws a dichotomy between literal challenges faced by travelers in countries lacking infrastructure or opportunities for interclass mobility and the metaphorical roadblocks that stand between a girl and the woman she will become, such as sex, puberty, and menarche.

Karonech Chreng
The Effect of Migration on Affordable Housing
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, affordable housing is when rent and income ratio is 30%. This means that one housing cost should not be more than 30% of his/her take-home monthly income. Affordable housing has become more prevalent in metropolitan areas, especially to low-income households. When a metropolitan experience economic growth, it attracts more businesses, which also brings in more skilled workers. This labor migration could affect affordability housing. Individuals choose to migrate to a different location, which enables them to optimize their utility. The utility function for each individual could be a function of various variables such as labor market, state or local tax, and price of housing. My study is focusing on the effect of net migration on affordable housing by using panel data at census tract levels. I expect to find that migration has a significant effect on housing affordability.

Payton Dugan & Michael Gervasi
“Reading Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Self Portrait as a Soldier (1915) as a Statement on the Brutality of Modern Warfare”
Erika Berroth, Modern Languages and Literature (German)

With our expository paper, we chose to explore how the ungodly violence of World War I impacted gender roles, emotional and psychological reactions from soldiers/civilians, medical discoveries, and the transformation of post-war German society. By observing Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s 1915 painting Self Portrait as a Soldier, we demonstrate how he depicts the negative impacts of war/nationalism, and how he himself was affected mentally, physically, and emotionally by the war. Kirchner finds new forms of artistic expression to represent the costs and consequences of war. In our exploration, we anticipate discovering evidence of psychological distress among returning soldiers, changes in gender roles for men and women, a new emphasis on functional rather than aesthetic surgeries, and reflections of significant changes in German society. This paper is an interdisciplinary exploration through the lenses of the art history of the avant-garde movement from 1900 to 1945 and post WWI German society.

Chloe Easterling
Somos Calentura: Superando la denuncia con la resistencia
Carlos De Oro, Modern Languages and Literature (Spanish)

On a daily basis, the Afro-Colombian population of Western Colombia faces the injustices of state abandonment, drug trafficking, law enforcement corruption, significant wage gaps resulting in poverty, racism, systematic injustice and being social outcasts. As a result of the injustices, Afro-Colombians lack proper education, health care, mortality rates are high and they can barely make a living for themselves unless it is through drug trafficking, so they look to the arts as an outlet to escape the statistics. Jorge Nava’s 2018 film Somos Calentura shows the resistance perspective through practicing and performing original music (salsa choke) and dance of the Afro-Colombians. The idea of Nava’s work is dancing and music helps Afro-Colombians overcome economical and threatening statistics while maintaining their identity. The purpose of my research is to analyze the use of music and dance in Somos Calentura as a device of resistance that allows Afro-Colombians an outlet to escape injustice, and preserve and promote their cultural identity.

Hannah Freeman
An Analysis of Stock Market Participation
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

Currently under 60% of households participate in the equity market. The stock market and other investments are essential to an individual’s retirement and the U.S. economy as a whole considering the stock and bond market is the primary way companies raise capital for new projects. What causes a household or individual to invest their extra capital or simply keep it in a savings account? Previous literature suggests an increase in market participation can be associated with increased financial literacy, higher credit scores, and gender norms. In this paper, I’ll use survey data gathered from the 2002 General Social Survey to identify the variables that cause market and retirement savings participation. Income and market knowledge are expected to be the most significant causes of stock market participation but there may be other significant variables such as gender, race, and age. Additionally, I’ll interact each demographic with income to determine, for example, if those who have extra capital but are young choose to invest.

Benjamin Garcia
Women’s Suffrage and the Role of Motherhood in England and the United States
Melissa Byrnes, History

Many historians have noted a shift in women’s suffrage arguments as the movement entered the 20th century. Earlier suffragists argued that women should receive political rights on the same grounds as men because of the natural equality between all people. Later suffragists, however, relied on claims that granting women the vote would benefit society, usually because motherly virtues were needed in government. This shift was in tangent with the increased role of the government in welfare, a role that was traditionally filled by the mother of the family.

This study is focused on the ways in which motherhood and the rise of the welfare state are connected to the shift in the rhetoric of the women’s suffrage movement and what this means for women’s suffrage, both at its conception and in today’s world. It proposes that as the concept of motherhood became increasingly tied to femininity and the government increasingly involved in welfare the suffrage movement experienced a comparatively conservative shift. The effects of this conservative shift, conservative being defined as a reliance on traditional values and social roles rather than promoting a new understanding of gender, are still being felt in our society today.

Nathan Garcia
Partisanship and Participation
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

The perception, looking at the United States aggregate media production and current obsession with the president, is that America is an incredibly politically active country. The people are angry at the other side, and political tensions are growing One gets the impression that everyone is involved in this growing political storm. But the voter participation rate in the United States is abysmally small. The 2016 election, a very contentious and media-dominating race, only had 54% of voting age Americans vote in the election, a number that is on par with/ somewhat larger than previous election years (electproject.org). Americans are increasingly disinterested in politics. This question needs to be answered, as the declining participation rate signals a declining democracy. As less and less people are even motivated enough to engage in the bare minimum of duties as a democratic citizen: voting in a national, presidential election.

This paper will examine a variety of variables motivating participation rates emulating commonly used election prediction strategies, with the focus being finding a link between declining participation and increased levels of partisanship in the state. I will be using a panel data model of all 50 states, focusing on national presidential elections as they have the highest (though still often low) participation rates. States are the chosen unit because of a lack of individual data within the population of interest. The population of interest is a mix between the voters, who have that information registered and tracked per election, and people who refused the political process, who have little to no individual level information pertaining to elections. The broader perspective allows the potential finding of the cause of why this unobservable population has been leaving the political process. A state-level fixed effect will be included to account for these potential bias problems. I hope to establish a statistically significant, causal link that shows that the increased partisanship of our political process is driving disinterest in the electoral system of the United States of America.

Stephanie Garcia
Rising, Falling, and Regeneration: How Activism Helped Create a Whole New Space of Learning Within Higher Education
Patrick Hajovsky, Latin American and Border Studies

Historically, institutions of higher education have long served as not only places of structured, monolithic learning, but also breeding grounds for student-led revolutions and protests that push for critiques of what institutions can do better in regard to their oppressive and exclusionary culture, policies, and overall behavioral practices. For this project, I’ve decided to examine a microcosm of higher education such as Southwestern in order to discuss specific, student-led activist work that has occurred over the years and how the memory of this labor lives on according to both the institution and amongst the students who instigate it. Relying on anecdotal, theoretical, and visual evidence, this presentation discusses what kind of student-led space is created as a result of this preservation process and how it serves students who seek to combat repeated institutional erasure and appropriation of activism and higher education-related trauma. Ultimately, the desired end results are not only to analyze what limitations are imposed on this type of space, but to present how the complex inner workings and transformations that occur within it can be utilized to ensure that the history and narratives that aren’t institutionally documented remain visible and of significance.

Amanda Gomez
Language and Migration - German Linguistic Innovations in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Erika Berroth, Modern Languages and Literature (German)

Migration has been an important aspect of Germany’s history, the German language, most of all the colloquial language. The project seeks to focus on the representation of language changes or adaptations in specific socio-economic contexts using contemporary written works and German films on migration. The contemporary works underscore the connections to linguistic studies, including the continuously growing German vocabulary consisting of 5.3 million words. To understand the tangible consequences in cultural products, we focus on how migration not only changes the appearance of cities but also results in, linguistic imprints on the German language. Specifically, we will be reviewing linguistic studies on how the German language was transformed by migrations in the 20th and 21st centuries, using selected specific examples to illustrate when and how representations of migrations in languages such as “Kietzdeutsch” came to be.

Providing insights on how spoken language adapts to the ever-widening discrepancy between the written and colloquial language is important for understanding the reciprocity of influences of host- and migrant cultures. My research suggests that a result of the multicultural colloquial contributing to initiating the reformation in written language, migration contributes to linguistic innovation and growth in the standard German language.

Mariana Gutierrez & Aransas Haley
“Monos: Más allá de la guerillas”
Carlos De Oro, Modern Languages and Literature (Spanish)

The film Monos (Landes 2019) provides an unparalleled look into the lives of eight teenaged guerilla fighters surviving in the rugged mountains of Colombia. However, almost everything, with the exception of the guerrilleros and their prescribed codenames, goes unnamed. The purposeful vagueness of the guerrilleros' motives, directives, and lives before joining the guerilla breathes new life into the portrayal of guerilla activity in Colombia, allowing the audience to focus solely on the mental and emotional experiences of the teenagers themselves. This work aims to analyze Monos as a kind of adolescent resistance film that aids in the dismantling of many Latin American cultural taboos. By focusing on four core moments: the teenagers’ cult-like hazing, homosexual exploration, recreational drug use, and defection from la guerilla, the audience begins to understand how and why a young person would choose to join a guerrilla group and why they may eventually choose to defect. Landes simultaneously denounces both guerilla violence and ineffective government leadership in Colombia and how it creates a cycle of violence and neglect that impacts colombian youth.

Joshua Im
The Perspectives and Mechanisms of Cultural Elitism
Catherine Ross, Language Learning Center

My presentation will analyze cultural elitism from an immigration point of view. Specifically, cultural elitism will be framed in how the dominant culture of America responds in an elitist attitude to the new cultures brought forth by migrants. I will analyze this concept from various perspectives: psychology, sociology, communication studies, and politics. To narrow this field down, I have decided to focus this elitism on anti-immigration rhetoric towards undocumented immigrants and refugees coming from Mexico. More specifically, the focus will center on certain elitist comments from famous/important people, in the form of either written quotes or video clips of the quote regarding Mexican culture and how the implementation of this culture is a detriment to American identity.

The analysis will be conducted through an interdisciplinary lens. Specifically, though most anti-immigration rhetoric stems from topics such as security and job loss, cultural elements of identity can become embedded in this rhetoric which feeds into negative stereotypes regarding the culture of immigrants, which is where we will see the intersection between political science and communication studies. Psychology will be used to explain overarching trends of elitism at the individual level, such as elitism explained through Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory, while sociology will analyze elitism from Marx’s Conflict perspective as elitism being used as a means to allow the powerful to continuously operate at the top. The presentation will be done through a powerpoint that utilizes various anti-immigration clips as a focal point for my discussion.

Vanessa Jones, Antonio Mendez, & Lacee Mims
The ICE391 Protein CroS Regulates Activity of the Error-prone DNA Polymerase V Ortholog, RumA’2B
Martín Gonzalez, Biology

Located within the highly mobile integrative conjugative element ICE391, the error-prone DNA polymerase V ortholog, polVICE391, is thought to function in replicating past DNA lesions via translesion synthesis (TLS), following severe DNA damage. In vivo, polV orthologs have been shown to promote spontaneous and DNA damage-induced mutagenesis, which can create both deleterious and advantageous phenotypes among bacteria. Interestingly, there appears to be no substantial increase in mutagenesis in a cell harboring ICE391, following a DNA damaging event. However, when the rumAB operon, which codes for polVICE391, is expressed from a low-copy plasmid, a significant increase in both spontaneous and induced mutagenesis is observed. As a result, the mechanisms activating these low fidelity polymerases in the SOS response are subjected to multiple levels of regulation. To identify the regulatory factors imposed on polVICE391 within ICE391, fragments of the element were cloned into appropriate plasmid backgrounds and used to perform in vivo mutagenesis assays, which revealed a transcriptional repressor encoded by croSICE391. In the presence of activated RecA, Escherichia coli expressing CroS exhibited reduced levels of polVICE391-mediated mutagenesis as compared to CroS deficient cells. Therefore, this evidence suggests CroS functions to mitigate the polVICE391-mediated mutagenic response.

Alexander Joseph & Luke Orren
NBA Player Success: Forecasting NBA Team Success based on Player Added-Value from the Draft
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

NBA front-offices are constantly developing new and improved methods of scouting and drafting NBA prospects with the hopes of delivering an optimal level of value to their team. This paper will use amateur statistics on NBA draftees to develop a regression model that forecasts their success on a professional level. Additionally, our paper will attempt to re-run the regressions with draft number and rookie season data included. The primary criteria of success in our paper are career earnings, All-Star appearances, win shares, and player efficiency rating (PER). We will collect data using statistics of players drafted in years 1990 through 1998. In doing this, we will include statistics from NBA draft classes, none of which have any remaining active players. Using our findings, we will compare the predictions made by the model against any particular draft order within our sample to determine if our model outperforms the actual draft. Additionally, our study will look to gain a further understanding of our results as it relates to the future performance of young NBA talent, the efficacy of the draft, and the industry as a whole.

Harrison Kaeller
What Effects Work Discrimination in the United States: An analysis Using the General Social Survey
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

In this project, I am investigating factors that are affecting workplace discrimination in the United States in 2016. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS), I control for variables such as sexual orientation, race, age, marital status and type, income, health, and more through the use of econometric modeling, specifically using a cross-sectional analysis. The goal is to identify factors on what makes people perceive they workplace discrimination.

Molly McConnell
“What If That Were My Child”: White Maternal Activism at the US/Mexico Border
Maria Lowe, Sociology and Anthropology

Maternal Activism has been studied in various social movements, including, but not limited to, movements against state violence, the infant and maternal mortality rate, police brutality, drunk driving, for welfare rights, and for immigrant’s rights (Katz 2017; Lawson 2018; McDonald 1997; Velazquez 2017; Weed 1990). However, no known studies have previously examined the reasons for and ways in which white mothers work for the immigration rights of children and individuals that do not reflect their own in-group identities, specifically, their racial/ethnic identity. This paper relies on 10 in-depth interviews conducted from March to September 2019, less than a year after the current administration’s ‘zero-tolerance’ prosecution policy, to indicate the ways in which white mothers have stepped forward to advocate for the reunification of children and individuals detained in immigrant detention centers. The results reveal that the factors motivating, mechanizing, and maintaining these mothers’ volunteer-statuses are deeply entrenched in understandings of their racial identity, feelings of obligation based upon their privileged statuses, involvement in social media activist groups, and their roles and identities as mothers. However, actions and ideals reflecting white saviorism and complex identity-fusion raise questions about the ethics of their volunteer/activist status, and provide a lens through which the creation of whiteness and white ally-ship can be further investigated.

Philip Moffatt
The Effect of Hurricane Harvey on Texas Housing
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey had a devastating impact on the 60 counties declared “State of Disaster.” This paper seeks to examine the casual effect Harvey had on the housing market for counties in Texas. Specially, I will measure the differences in total number of home sales for counties deemed “State of Disaster” vs counties that were not. This study uses panel data that examines every county in Texas five years before Hurricane Harvey and two years after. Using surrounding literature on the housing market to discover what key variables drive growth, I was able to control for the most impactful influencers, including median income, population, crime, interest rates, employment, education and more. From the results, I except to find that hurricane Harvey has a significant, negative effect on home sales, for the counties declare “State of Disaster.” This would indicate that the hurricane’s destruction likely made it difficult for individuals to sell homes due to damage and caused significant relocation to surround counties.

Morgan Mosby
Ripping the Bodice off of Sir Walter Scott: Investigating the Evolution of Historical Fiction Through Representations of the Jacobite Rebellions
Jessica Hower, History

This project investigates the evolution of the historical novel over the course of two centuries, arguing that a proper understanding of the form necessarily includes discussion on the ways in which gender, national identity, and colonialism undergird the structure of the genre. Moreover, it also argues that works of historical fiction not only revise a particular history, but that they do so to meet some need of the contemporary moment in which they were written. As such, I analyze four novels about a single history––the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 in Scotland––to demonstrate the ways in which historical novels function as both primary and secondary sources. This discussion is at all times informed by feminist and postcolonial theories, highlighting that these texts are always gendered and heavily implicated in discourses of race, national identity, and the legacy of colonialism. The aim of this project is to demonstrate that, far from being mere “escapism,” historical novels can, when read in this manner, reveal our relationship with history and history’s relationship with the present.

Amiel Padayhag
The Quest for Wholeness: Love and Healing in Avatar: The Last Airbender
Sequoia Maner, Feminist Studies

This paper explores the feminist possibilities and political implications of healing and radical love in Nickelodeon’s critically acclaimed animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005 - 2008). I trace the character Zuko’s journey from troubled villain to unequivocal hero over the course of the series and use black feminist bell hooks’ theory on radical love and queer Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa’s concepts of nepantla, (des)conocimiento, and the Coyolxauhqui imperative to frame my analysis. I argue that Zuko’s journey deconstructs popular myths concerning the nuclear family and blood ties, illustrates that love is a matter of choice and will, and demonstrates how healing is a non-linear process. Additionally, Avatar: The Last Airbender’s creators offer their young viewers a male feminist figure through Zuko’s character and, in doing so, establish a radical model for television programming.

Laura Rativa
Experiences Become Political Perspectives
Francis Mathieu, Paideia

How do individuals’ stories of migration come into play when talking about the politics of Immigration in the United States? Politics in the United States have become divided or partisan for multiple reasons factors. However, Immigration has been a big factor that impacts this partisanship as many people have different views on who should be able to enter the country and who should be able to hold legal status. For this project, I will be looking at the topic of immigration in the United States through psychological and political lenses using the disciplines of Psychology and Political Science. I have chosen to view the topic of how experiences convert into political perspectives through the Psychological and Political Science lenses because it has been demonstrated that Political Psychology is a reality. These disciplines will be integrated through a short video production where I will portray interviews of immigrants that have different views on the politics of immigration as they tell their immigration stories. I will analyze immigration through immigrants’ perspectives. For this project, I am looking to interview individuals from multiple backgrounds in terms of different countries of origin, different socioeconomic statuses, different legal status and more. Examples of the questions that I will be asking them include: Why did you migrate to the United States? What are your views on having open borders in the United States? What is your political affiliation? I have chosen to create a video to show the Political Psychology on views on immigration because I find it more credible to let immigrants tell their own stories. My job will be to integrate and explain how psychology impacts the interviewee’s political views on Immigration.

Dominique Rosario
The Impact of the Indigenous Point of View: An Analysis of Resistance and Denunciation in Pájaros de verano
Carlos De Oro, Modern Languages and Literature (Spanish)

My presentation focuses on the film Pájaros de verano (2018) by Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego. The film explores the indigenous wayuu community in Northern Colombia and the impact that drug trafficking has on their community, culture, and traditions. In the movie the incorporation of the drug trade in the wayuu community led to an increase of power and greed of those involved that negatively impacted the indigenous group. The commercialism of drugs in the indigenous community resulted in a fight to preserve the traditions and culture of the community. This movie brings light to the often overlooked and misrepresented lives of indigenous people in order to share their story and true lives with the world. My essay analyzes how the indigenous point of view and traditional languages are used as tools of resistance and denunciation of social problems in Colombia and Latin America as well as strategies to preserve the culture and traditions of historically marginalized groups.

Ethan Rushing
Swing Trading: A Momentum Market
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

Swing trading is an extended day trading style that aims to capture maximal profit holding positions for a few days to potentially several weeks (depending on strategy). With a shorter holding period for positions, the risk exposure is much larger. Many day and swing traders rely on graphically represented trends and ratios to make informed decisions on when to enter and exit a position. This paper will attempt to create a reliable regression model to predict when a position should be entered/exited on a singular stock with specific relevance to its Relative Strength Index (RSI) daily average using historical S&P 500 data from Yahoo Finance. The RSI is a momentum tracker to inform traders whether a stock is overbought or oversold relative to its price change. This model will also control for other key indicators popular in swing trading such as the MACD (Moving Average Convergence/Divergence) and SMA (Simple Moving Average) lines.

Matthew Sanford
Prohibition Ideology: How the American Temperance and Prohibition Movement Shaped a Framework of Virtuous and Authoritarian Restrictions in the Cultural and Political Landscape of the United States, 1869-1933
Jethro Hernandez Berrones, History

Current historiographical understandings view American Prohibition (1920-1933) as a social experiment of the progressive reform era (Burnham, 1968). For instance, scholars have examined political developments (Warner, 1928; Cherrington, 1931), economics (Thornton, 1991), class division, psychological profiles of prohibitionist groups (Sinclair, 1986), or social histories and the public’s perception of prohibition (Blocker, 1979, 1989; Orkent, 2010). However, Prohibition, conceived as an ultimate encapsulated social experiment, dismisses prohibitionist philosophy that predated and motivated the social and political mobilizations of the Prohibition. To fully understand the Prohibition era, historians should acknowledge this period as the logical conclusion of prohibitionist ideological development and long-standing cultural movements motivating socio-political change. This paper separates the ideological development of prohibitionist theory from government Prohibition policy. It proposes to expand the chronology of Prohibition to include in it the temperance movement and the cultural construction of prohibitionist ideology. By separating ideological and political developments before, during, and after Prohibition, this paper concludes temperance and prohibitionist ideology employed by Eliza Thompson, Francis Willard, and Wayne Wheeler, utilized moralistic authoritarian tactics to gain political and cultural power. They exploited global events, supportive social movements, and skipping-stone political maneuvering. Legal Prohibition was a minor success that ended due to a loss of cultural support, economic recession, and public disapproval. The ideological tools of prohibitionist theory and its virtuous authoritarianism managed to culturally ingrain themselves in American social and political thought in the last century, employed in various narcotic (war on drugs) and moralistic reform movements (civil rights, social reform).

Mariel Schroeder
The Photography of the AIDS Crisis and the Opioid Crisis: A Comparison of Nicholas Nixon and Nan Goldin
Allison Miller, Art and Art History

Photographs have the ability to look real to the viewer. Often times this makes photography the preferred medium for documenting crises. However, the very nature of photography (especially documentary photography) is deceptive. For my Capstone, I compared two artists’ approaches to documenting significant health crises: Nicholas Nixon’s photographs of the series People With AIDS (PWA) and Nan Goldin’s photographs of opioid addiction. I show how Nixon’s 1987 PWA series, which photographed people in the final stages of their battle with AIDS, were intrusive, dehumanizing, and sometimes non-consensual. Because of the type of camera Nixon used, his close-up photographs fragment the subject. In contrast, Goldin’s photographs revolve around her own opioid addiction and highlight institutions such as Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family that profit from the opioid crisis. By manipulating gaze and perspective, Goldin demonstrates how even photographs with narrow subjects (such as the self-portrait) can be transformed into works that serve as catalysts for positive social change.

Kat Shuttlesworth
The Pornographic is Political: Feminist Agency in the Porn Industry
Sequoia Maner, Feminist Studies

The Pornographic is Political: Feminist Agency in the Porn Industry looks at the state of contemporary pornography through a feminist lense, analyzing the state of today’s pornography (which many feminists have called violent and degrading) as a direct result of a broader cultural reticience to understand women as complex sexual agents and the complicated work that women within the porn industry have done to forge space for feminist sexual empowerment within an industry heavily dominated by patriarchal understandings about sex and sexuality. In order to do so, women within three facets of the pornography industry are profiled: two mainstream porn stars who have spoken at length about their personal interest in women’s sexual liberation and its role in their career in pornography, webcam models whose money is made performing private online shows from the comfort of their homes, and a burgeoning scene of feminist porn directors such as Tristin Taormino and Erika Lust. Focused on unpacking gendered expectations of sexuality and their role in producing today’s unsatisfactory porn-scape, my research aims to turn an eye towards a future in which pornography has the potential to be utilized as a tool for the sexual liberation of all genders.

Jake Stagner
The Black Hand and the European War
Melissa Byrnes, History

Historians have debated for the last century about the causes of World War One, from Austria-Hungary provoking the conflict to keep their great power status, to blaming Germany for engaging in a naval arms race that provoked Britain. Over the years historians have not found a compelling answer to the question: “Who started the First World War”? The Black Hand, who were tied to the assassination by way of supplying arms as well as smuggling the assassins into Bosnia, was a secret Serbian military society that was dedicated to uniting all of the south Slavs under the Serbian people. By looking at the actions of the The Black Hand as well as the World Powers through key diplomatic documents and foreign correspondences, we can begin to understand the start of the Great War. In addition to this, looking at the Great War from this perspective could lead to a better understanding of militant nationalism’s role in this period as well as filling in the historiographical gaps in World War One research. Through my research, I find that the Black Hand and other Pan-Slavic nationalist groups were directly responsible for one of humanity’s worst wars.

Olivia Stankus
Thomas’s Divided Consciousness: Thomas Becket, Thomas Wolsey, and Thomas More in Church, State, and Memory
Jessica Hower, History

For a period of time, Thomas à Becket, Thomas Wolsey, and Thomas More each served both the Roman Catholic pope and king of England, simultaneously possessing secular and spiritual power, with all of the complexity and contradiction that this entailed. Despite their similar positions, the historical legacies of these men differ drastically. More and Becket, although separated by over three hundred years, are often categorized together, even twinned, due to their deaths at hands of their kings and posthumous canonization; conversely, Wolsey and More are occasionally compared, as rough contemporaries. This study addresses a significant limit to the existing literature by uniquely comparing the three men and their respective legacies together; while simultaneously analyzing the failure of historians of religion and historians of politics, as well as medievalists and early modernists, to talk across their respective subfields. Moreover, this study privileges Wolsey in a way that other scholars have not, analyzing the appropriateness and accuracy of separating him from his predecessor Becket and successor More, and, at the same time, shedding new light on the other two Thomases by way of comparison. Relying on methods of political history, religious history, memory studies, and postmodernism, this study argues that for all three men, their iconic status as either a saint or a villain functions to obscure, rather than illuminate, their historical significance. Over time, these tropes have come to dominate public consciousness, crystallize certain narratives, and shape scholarly inquiry.

Aiden Steinle
Prime Asset Management - Portfolio Modeling with Mersenne Primes
Alison Marr, Mathematics and Computer Science

Mersenne primes, a set of prime numbers of the form 2^p - 1, are the subject of much fascination. Only 51 have been found to date, with the largest among these almost 25 million digits long. Existing research has suggested that the distribution of the integers within these prime numbers is uniform. Drawing from work by Benoit Mandelbrot applying chaos to the realm of finance and securities trading, this project uses samples from Mersenne prime M82589933 to build a fictional portfolio of stocks in the S&P 500 index using data from the last 10 years. The prime was split into strings of digits which were translated into ticker symbols. Each week, stocks were either held for the next week or sold and replaced with another prime-generated ticker. The performance of the portfolio was compared with market averages for that decade to determine whether success in the market relies on skill or merely random chance.

Emily Tesmer
American National Identity and Political Participation: The Mediating Effects of the Critical Partisan Media
Emily Sydnor, Political Science

This project takes a political psychology approach to investigate the intersection between American national identity–one’s attachment to Americans as a social group–the partisan media, and political participation in the context of administrative criticism.This project uses an online survey-experiment to expose participants to administrative criticism of the American government from partisan news outlets. Participants are exposed to one of four potential news articles that were manipulated to appear from either a liberal outlet (e.g., MSNBC), or a conservative outlet (e.g., Fox News), and either used critical or uncritical language of the country’s management of the immigration crisis. While participants did not appear to react to the partisan nature of the media outlets, they did have different emotional reactions to the content of the article, conditional on their national identity and the presence of criticism in the news story. Participants' emotional responses then changed their likelihood of engaging in various political activities. Therefore, regardless of partisanship, critical coverage of government action elicited emotional responses in participants that shaped their political participation.

Elijah Timms
What Drives Life Expectancy in Texas Counties?
Katherine Grooms, Economics and Business

Life expectancy is a major source of curiosity for the world, and is a focal point of research to help us live longer, healthier lives. Through the last few decades, humanity has made leaps in technology and intelligence to allow for humans to live longer than ever before. But with breakthroughs in so many different fields, it’s hard to determine what has had the largest effect on American life expectancy, and in this case Texans in particular. Texas is growing at one of the fastest rates in the US, and has shown no signs of slowing down for the past few decades. Large amounts of data have been collected on many aspects of life in Texas, and is readily available for use. With the sheer size and population of Texas, we can use the information gathered on the 214 counties in the state to find out the values of, and better understand the different inputs that affect life expectancy in not only Texas, but we can also apply this to the 49 other states.

Zachary White
“I see masculinity as...ever-changing”: Masculinities Among Black Male University Students
Maria Lowe, Sociology and Anthropology

This research examines the experiences of young Black men in college and explores how they construct their idea of masculinity from high school to college. My study relies upon 10 in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted between March and October of 2019 with current college students who identify as both Black and male. Based on a rigorous analysis of the 10 interviews, this study finds that traditionally hegemonic forms of masculinity do not necessarily endure from high school into college, and that racial microaggressions experienced by young Black men can shape their identity as both a student as well as a man. My research further suggests that notions of masculinity are not rigid, but fluid. It is more so a hybrid of masculinities that can change over time. Finally, this paper expands upon previous literature by providing an intersectional approach to studies of masculinity that do not center White, heterosexual men.

Shelby Wilhite
Muscle Health Requirements for Successful Exercise Induced Weight Loss
Edward Merritt, Kinesiology

Weight loss is unlikely without dietary modifications, as an average person requires 60+ hours of exercise to lose 5 kg. Exercise weight loss requires high cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness. Individuals with a history of gradual, fluctuating, or rapid weight gain could have different cardiorespiratory and muscle health levels.

PURPOSE: To determine if weight gain since age 20 and recent weight history are related to current cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness.

METHODS: 23 overweight/obese adults (47.4 ± 9.8 yrs, BMI 29.7 ± 3.4) participated. Weight history was self-reported. Body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2) and skeletal muscle strength were determined.

RESULTS: Participants were 39.2 ± 5.4% fat, having gained 9.3 ± 4.4 kg since age 20. VO2 was 2.18 ± 0.5 L/min. Percentage of weight gain since 20 (25.96 ± 11.10%) and current maximal oxygen consumption (r = -0.08) were not related.

CONCLUSION: Current fitness does not correlate with weight gain since age 20. Future studies will determine if method of weight gain over time is related to cardiorespiratory and/or muscular fitness and if current fitness level can predict success in exercise weight loss programs.

Jaden Williams
The Dichotomy of Soundscapes in Theatre and Film
Kerry Bechtal, Theatre

The soundscape of a theatre production or a film is important in cementing the concept the director is presenting. The function of soundscapes in theatre and film have always differed in that in film sound can serve as the focal point of the entire production while in theatre, sound can only serve as a focal point for small sections. However, with the advent of new technology for theatre this dichotomy is being challenged. By examining the history of sound in technology for both film and theatre, one can highlight the developments that allow for the use of soundscapes in contemporary films and theatrical productions. Analyzing the film, There Will Be Blood and the play, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time, it can be concluded that the soundscape of the film plays more of a prominent role than the soundscape of the play because of the differences in film and theatre as mediums. Perhaps with the advent of new technology for theatre, what is considered “possible” is evolving, allowing for soundscapes to play a more central role in play production.