Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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Description
Pandora is a play exploring our relationship with gendered technology through the lens of artificial intelligence. Can women be subjective under patriarchy? Do robots who look like women have subjectivity? Hoping to create a better version of ourselves, The Engineer must navigate the loss of her creation, and Pandora must navigate their new world. The original premiere run was March 27-28, 2018, original cast: Caitlin Andelora, Rikki Tremblay, and Michael Tristano Jr.
ContributorsToye, Abigail Elizabeth (Author) / Linde, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Abele, Kelsey (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The passage of 2007's Legal Arizona Workers Act, which required all new hires to be tested for legal employment status through the federal E-Verify database, drastically changed the employment prospects for undocumented workers in the state. Using data from the 2007-2010 American Community Survey, this paper seeks to identify the impact of this law on the labor force in Arizona, specifically regarding undocumented workers and less educated native workers. Overall, the data shows that the wage bias against undocumented immigrants doubled in the four years studied, and the wages of native workers without a high school degree saw a temporary, positive increase compared to comparable workers in other states. The law did not have an effect on the wages of native workers with a high school degree.
ContributorsSantiago, Maria Christina (Author) / Pereira, Claudiney (Thesis director) / Mendez, Jose (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Throughout my experience in college, I learned many different techniques to communicate effectively. Most professors emphasized the importance of speaking clearly, and the ability to influence others. Dr. Kashiwagi piqued my interest when he explained his thoughts on how he wanted us to communicate to him. The criteria were simple, speak to him in a way that he could easily understand, without having to think. If thinking took place for him in the conversation, he determined that the person spoke too complexly and that his understanding of the student was low. After hearing this in class, I thought back to past conversations with my managers. I then wondered if I explained things clearer or simplified my wording, would things have gone better? I was also curious about simplicity in communication through writing, and how different presentations of information affected understanding. To further analyze these issues, I explored multiple research reports on verbal communication. Furthermore, I set up an experiment to test two common types of visual communication. The research concludes that Dr. Kashiwagi's theory was indeed correct, simplicity in conversation reduces miscommunication. The effectiveness of simplicity in written communication was partially proven by the survey results. The results indicated that the time required to fully understand a given topic dropped significantly if the information was depicted in a simplified format (list format). The more complex paragraph (textbook format) did have a higher level of understanding. However, the participants rated the textbook format job objectives as more complex, and stressful. After gathering the research, and running the experiment it can be concluded that by simplifying verbal communication, there are negligible differences in understanding of the topic, but the time of understanding decreases significantly.
ContributorsWilliams, Matthew Scott (Author) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Thesis director) / Abraham, Seth (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Searching for home: An in depth look at undocumented youth in Arizona from their perspective, a research and creative project, looks at not only the history and data surrounding unauthorized immigration, but a personal account through the stories of undocumented immigrants. The research paper focuses on the policies, court cases and history of protests that surround the topics. The article under Appendix A focuses on the personal stories and accounts of two undocumented immigrants who discuss the importance of fighting to stay in the U.S. and preserving the dream and life they built. Two videos also explore the emotional stories of the undocumented immigrants and those who live on the border. The first video features two undocumented immigrants who discuss their beliefs in protesting and working to stay in the U.S. The second video features two women who have lived in both Mexico and the U.S. legally and discuss how immigration and border policies affect them.
ContributorsMacklin, Alexis Isabella (Author) / Angela, Kocherga (Thesis director) / David, Seibert (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
A look at how the Vietnam War influenced immigrant and first-generation children's perception of culture. This thesis focuses on Vietnamese-American immigration as a whole, and on subjects on the American west coast. Interviews were conducted with eleven subjects to examine the most profound influences on culture and how native culture is passed on through the generations. Focuses include cultural identity, cultural inheritance, prominent native and adoptive cultural values, and culture as affected by adversity.
ContributorsTran, Yvana (Author) / Loebenberg, Abby (Thesis director) / Suk, Mina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
This project is to help Guatemalan youth immigrants by providing them with the information necessary to access support in the United States, and obtainin legal status in the United States. In order to produce a brochure with this information, it was necessary to research the political, economic, and social history of Guatemala in order to determine what struggles citizens are facing, and specifically what experiences youth in the country have prior to their journey to the United States. This research is culminated into a paper that discusses the history, the causes of emigration from Guatemala, and the status of youth immigrants before they leave Guatemala and once they arrive in the United States.
ContributorsMckay, Rachel Marie (Author) / Magaña, Lisa (Thesis director) / Elias, Olivia (Committee member) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / College of Letters and Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Unauthorized confronts the relationship between technology and personhood in the modern world. More specifically, it addresses the personal and social effects of border politics within the frame of cyber crime. The short film takes place in the near future where a hacker can create citizenship for anyone she wants, effectively turning anyone into a legal person in the United States. This parallels the real life struggles of unauthorized immigrants trying to gain a new life this side of the border despite the overwhelming backlash from the conservative and xenophobic population. The main character's ability to grant citizenship forces the viewer to confront what being a person really means. The film also alludes to the popularized antics of modern day hackers and whistleblowers who are often turned into heroes for fighting the establishment despite their character flaws. The protagonist of Unauthorized struggles through underhanded sexism and blatant racism as well as her own personal struggles with drug addiction and failed relationships. These are very real struggles women face in technology jobs and life in general. The main character's actions ultimately destroy every relationship that she's established, including the connection to her own family. This film, in short, is about the walls people build between each other, both physical and social.
ContributorsStabley, Justin E. (Author) / Bradley, Christopher (Thesis director) / Baker, Aaron (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This Barrett, the Honors College senior thesis connects the experiences of cosplay with public speaking confidence. “Cosplay, abbreviated from the word ‘costume play,’ is a performance art in which the participant masquerades as a character from a selected film, television, video game, or comic book” (Gn, 2011, p. 583). The ability to “cosplay” in front of other relies on performing in front of an audience much like public speaking. When students speak with confidence, students will know their ideas are being expressed with conviction and assurance. Having the ability to speak professionally and publicly, is a highly valued skill in the workforce and key to success in all types of employment. Communication skills are frequently a top factor in determining whether a college student will obtain employment (Beebe & Beebe, 2006, p. 275-276). Despite their different definitions, there are multiple connections between cosplay and public speaking. This thesis explores the connection between peer support and belief in one’s self in both cosplay and public speaking. Now those who have direct support become self-reliant and confident as a result of these connections. This projects highlights Goffman’s identity theory, the Pygmalion effect, theories of fashion and identity, role-play, narrative paradigm, dramatism, and non-verbal communication, and explores how cosplay can contribute to the formation of one’s public speaking persona. The issue of anxiety is also included in the conversation as it is central to both cosplay and public speaking. Ultimately, this thesis explores the questions: Can cosplay help students become empowered public speakers?
ContributorsGallardo Rojas, Lizette (Author) / Ramsey, Ramsey Eric (Thesis director) / Wentzel, Bonnie (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This thesis examines the problems that occur when the politics and practices of social services, specifically maternal and prenatal care, are guided by a distorted understanding of immigration. It compares the politics and practice of this care across two international borders: the U.S.-Mexico and that within Hispaniola. In an ideal world, care would be extended to all individuals regardless of citizenship. However, since every welfare state has its limits at the national border, citizenship matters to both federal governments and medical professionals. Government-provided resources play an integral role in the current immigration debate, as these programs are a collective investment in which all individuals contribute in order to sustain it. The United States developed the welfare state in order to provide necessary resources to those who could not afford it. Its creators did not view these services as a handout, rather as a support for the future workforce of the country. However, health care was and still is not provided on this model of economic and social citizenship. Current U.S. healthcare policy dictates that no one can be turned away in an emergency situation because someone cannot pay their medical bill, including undocumented immigrants. But for immigrant mothers carrying children across the border, maternal and prenatal care does not qualify as an emergency and the federal government aid typically does not extend to them them as citizens. When care is extended to undocumented immigrants in the United States at all, it typically is provided to the child through Medicaid, who is by dint of the Fourteenth Amendment considered a citizen after birth. The relation between the Dominican Republic and Haiti offers a more complex situation, as the idea of birthright citizenship has recently been revoked. Following the Haitian Earthquake in 2010, the only healthcare to which many Haitians had access was across the Hispaniola border. Haitian women who give birth to children in the Dominican Republic are often not evaluated by a doctor until they are entering the delivery process, and even then health-care is complicated by or denied because of racial prejudice and unclear legal situation. In September of 2013, the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic issues a new ruling which declared that any immigrant born between 1929 and 2010 without documentation of their own or of their ancestors does not have citizenship, rendering many Haitians born in the Dominican Republic essentially stateless. To be born to a non-citizen mother typically means the child will likely be born with little or no prenatal care, and the mother will receive poor or inadequate care. Prenatal care is one of the most inexpensive elements of a care-model that carries huge returns relative to its costs. All governments would benefit from improved access to maternal and prenatal care because its future citizens who receive such care would be born healthier and have fewer expensive chronic illnesses. Fewer chronic illness among a population would have huge returns on the welfare state because fewer people would be utilizing it for expensive medical treatments. Though most medical professionals condemn the extreme act of denying care to pregnant women or infants (documented or not), the Dominican Republic and the United States have a popular politics that embraces this cruelty, despite the fact that both pride themselves on a multi-ethnic population. It is easy for policymakers to incriminate undocumented immigrants and claim that they are responsible for an illegitimate share of the consumption of the country's resources. Therefore, it seems likely that the host country's perceptions of immigrant natality and maternity help construct a negative image of the immigration "problem" in such a way that laws and policies are designed without accurate rationale. This thesis examines how the United States and the Dominican Republic might improve the relationship between the culture of healthcare and the role of the legal system for immigrants and their children. It seeks to understand the reasons, motivations, and consequences for denying immigrants services on the account of their citizenship status. The social, economic, and health consequences of being an undocumented citizen will be examined. Current legal policy and what political roadblocks and cultural prejudices must be overcome in order to implement a successful policy will be reviewed. Finally, the best practices prenatal care as a national investment will be discussed, as will the problem of cross-cultural perception of natality, maternity, and immigration.
ContributorsPrassas, Alexandra Rose (Author) / Oberle, Eric (Thesis director) / Vega, Sujey (Committee member) / Oberstein, Bruce (Committee member) / College of Letters and Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The foundations of legacy media, especially the news media, are not as strong as they once were. A digital revolution has changed the operation models for and journalistic organizations are trying to find their place in the new market. This project is intended to analyze the effects of new/emerging technologies on the journalism industry. Five different categories of technology will be explored. They are as follows: the semantic web, automation software, data analysis and aggregators, virtual reality and drone journalism. The potential of these technologies will be broken up according to four guidelines, ethical implications, effects on the reportorial process, business impacts and changes to the consumer experience. Upon my examination, it is apparent that no single technology will offer the journalism industry the remedy it has been searching for. Some combination of emerging technologies however, may form the basis for the next generation of news. Findings are presented on a website that features video, visuals, linked content, and original graphics. Website found at http://www.explorenewstech.com/
ContributorsMaxwell, Gavin William (Author) / McGuire, Tim (Thesis director) / Cornelius, David (Committee member) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05