PROJECT WASHINGTON IS EVOLVING! CHECK OUT WHATS NEXT FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS IN TEXAS!
SPARK is short for Scholars Producing Arts Research & Knowledge - the name Carter gives to his independent research work at WKU, spanning film industry inclusion, renewable energy, cross-cultural leadership, and community-engaged research methods. The five areas below link to the original papers. For more formal citation-style papers, visit the Writing page.
Investigated the history of inclusion in the film industry, examining how the diversity of leadership inside production companies shapes which stories get made and whose stories get left out.
Studied the accessibility and implications of wind power adoption, showing the world could plausibly run on renewable wind power with radical enough adoption - a project that grew out of an ecology class years earlier.
Examines the ethnocentric stages groups move through in multicultural environments (denial, defense, minimalization) and the leadership qualities, self-development, ethics, cultural exposure, that help transform them, drawing on Moodian's framework.
Analyzed models like Dr. Michael Burns's CoSearch initiative, which pairs university departments with community partners to make research genuinely interdisciplinary, alongside the broader question of who gets cultural access to information.
Capstone research applying macro-social marketing theory to green-technology adoption, asking whether social information access online can accelerate community learning around renewable energy.