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
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory proposes that the personality has three components, the id, superego, and ego. The id is concerned with pleasure and gain, the reason it is often identified as a human's animalistic side. Additionally, the id does not consider social rules as closely and is the uncensored portion of the personality. The superego is the id's opposite; the superego considers social expectations and pressures immensely, is more self-critical and moralizing. The ego mediates the id and superego, and is understood as the realistic expression of personality which considers both the "animal" and human. A Fractured Whole: A Collection of Short Stories, explores Freud's construction of human personality in both form and content. Within the collection are three sections, each with a different pair of characters. Within each section, the same scene is written in the three "modes" of the id, superego, and ego, as three separate stories. The fifteen stories comprising this collection address the substance of daily life: sexuality, body image, competition, among other topics, to consider how a single person can balance the desires for personal pleasure and to satisfy social expectations. Writing the same scene in three "modes" allows for the observation of how the characters attitudes and actions alter under the influence of different parts of their personalities.
ContributorsOtte, Aneka (Author) / Sturges, Robert (Thesis director) / Bryant, Jason (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Prince Shendi is a novella set in the semi-fictional continent of Great Africa, specifically in a proud and prosperous region called Serengeti. Our story follows the thrilling adventure of Serengeti's king-to-be, the young and naive Shendi. When Kovalu, the mighty king of Serengeti and Shendi's father, passes away due to old age, Shendi is thrust into the gauntlet of responsibility in an early and unprepared state. After a short foray as the amateur king heavily assisted by the tenured members of Serengeti's Plain Council, Shendi encounters disaster that results in the death of an important council representative and the young king's temporary exile from Serengeti. The journey produced by his one hundred day exile takes Shendi through an arid wasteland, a teeming jungles, a mystic desert, and every terrain in between before his return. Along the way, Shendi unravels the details of a prophecy that means the end of the peaceful and prosperous life his lion kin and other Serengeti dwellers had known for centuries. This prophecy held him at the center of it as the catalyst and ultimately it would be up to Shendi and his actions to stop the ancient evil at work from killing all the lions of his pride and plunging all of Serengeti into a desolate and dismal state. Will Shendi overcome the primal evil looking to dominate the land of Great Africa forevermore? And if so, what will become of him afterwards? Prince Shendi was written over the course of 2015 and early 2016 by Lucas Revelle, a student at Arizona State University studying Exercise and Wellness as well as a student of Barrett, the Honors College. The story was directed, advised, and edited by Honors Fellow Dr. Aviva Dove-Viebahn along with help from the project's 2nd reader, Rebecca Viles.
ContributorsRevelle, Lucas Benjamin (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Viles, Rebecca (Committee member) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
ContributorsDolan, Kattie (Author) / Leong, Karen (Thesis director) / Wilson, Bradley (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
There are no words for the trauma of death when it strikes unexpectedly. What to say when a mother dies in childbirth? When a father figure contracts an unknown disease for no apparent cause? When a beloved pet, long mourned, may still be alive and hidden by estranged family? Generations may pass, and children may grow up, but the pain leaves marks that echo across time and the other borders we construct between our past and present. We may find strength on solitude, or prayer, or the words of a song written by someone else. In these four stories, spanning almost half a century, the marks of death and attempts to soothe or hide them are everywhere. Children on the cusp of adulthood grapple with the lives and the lies of their parents. Musicians examine the relationship of their music to the world. Legends and myths lurk in the shadows, tempting with false hope and rationalizing the unexplainable.
In “Playing the Changes,” we meet two men stranded in a small desert town in 1972, a time when their attraction to each other is still dangerous. Nile Walker is a jazz musician, running from a spurned lover and the law. Benji Garza is a once-devout Catholic, fixing cars and caring for his orphaned nephew, Hector. Walker and Garza’s affair will spin both lives and their heredity into sweeping tragedies that characters battle with lust and melody. Walker has a son he never meets, a drifter who finds connection with another lost soul at an airport in “La Petite Mort.” Hector is forced into early adulthood in “The Words,” when his ailing uncle’s health fails due to a mysterious disease not yet called AIDS. Later Tre—a young man struggling with the weight of his own lineage—meets him in “PHX.” These stories examine questions of death’s causes and its myriad effects, and offer this solution: Knowing that we cannot know everything, and living, loving, and singing anyway.
In “Playing the Changes,” we meet two men stranded in a small desert town in 1972, a time when their attraction to each other is still dangerous. Nile Walker is a jazz musician, running from a spurned lover and the law. Benji Garza is a once-devout Catholic, fixing cars and caring for his orphaned nephew, Hector. Walker and Garza’s affair will spin both lives and their heredity into sweeping tragedies that characters battle with lust and melody. Walker has a son he never meets, a drifter who finds connection with another lost soul at an airport in “La Petite Mort.” Hector is forced into early adulthood in “The Words,” when his ailing uncle’s health fails due to a mysterious disease not yet called AIDS. Later Tre—a young man struggling with the weight of his own lineage—meets him in “PHX.” These stories examine questions of death’s causes and its myriad effects, and offer this solution: Knowing that we cannot know everything, and living, loving, and singing anyway.
ContributorsCohen, Michael Lawrence (Author) / Bell, Matt (Thesis director) / Pearson, Dustin (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The Community Action Research Experiences (CARE) program collaborated with Singleton Moms, a local non-profit organization that provides financial, psychological, and social support services to single parents with cancer. The purpose of this action research project was to assess the volunteer program at Singleton Moms. Both past and present Singleton Moms' volunteers (N = 123; 87.0% female) completed an online survey assessing their motivation for volunteering and their satisfaction with the organization. A mixed ANOVA was conducted to identify the most important motivation and satisfaction domains and to see if the findings depended on whether the volunteers were current or past volunteers. For the motivation assessment, results indicated that the volunteers rate the cancer specific and moral/human kindness domains as the strongest reasons for motivating them to volunteer at Singleton Moms. In addition, results revealed that the social connection motivation domain was the only domain with differences between the ratings of the past and present volunteers. For the satisfaction assessment, results indicated that the volunteers rate the organizational climate domain as the most fulfilled area of satisfaction within the Singleton Moms' volunteer program. It was also revealed that there were no significant differences between the ratings of the past and present volunteers among all satisfaction domains. Both the quantitative and qualitative findings suggest that Singleton Moms' implications for action may include: 1) a volunteer database audit, 2) streamlining communications, 3) variability in volunteer times, and 4) bolstering volunteer motivation. Implementing some of these actions may help Singleton Moms increase volunteer motivation and satisfaction and thus create a more effective volunteer program. Ultimately, this may encourage volunteers to continue their services at Singleton Moms and thus help Singleton Moms expand their support programs and assist additional families.
ContributorsDubois, Courtney Michelle (Author) / Miller, Cindy (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of injury related death in the United States. The complexity of the injury environment that follows TBI creates an incomplete understanding of all the mechanisms in place to regulate chemotactic responses to TBI. The goal of this project was to develop a predictive in silco model using diffusion and autocrine/paracrine signaling specific to stromal cell derived factor-1α (SDF-1α) gradient formation after TBI and compare this model with in vivo experimental data. A COMSOL model using Fickian diffusion and autocrine/paracrine reaction terms was generated to predict the gradient formation observed in vivo at three physiologically relevant time points (1, 3, and 7 days). In vivo data was gathered and analyzed via immunohistochemistry and MATLAB. The spatial distribution of SDF-1α concentration in vivo more consistently demonstrated patterns similar to the in silico model dependent on both diffusion and autocrine/paracrine reaction terms rather than diffusion alone. The temporal distribution of these same results demonstrated degradation of SDF-1α at too rapid a rate, compared to the in vivo results. To account for differences in behavior observed in vivo, reaction terms and constants of 1st-order reaction rates must be modulated to better reflect the results observed in vivo. These results from both the in silico model and in vivo data support the hypothesis that SDF-1α gradient formation after TBI depends on more than diffusion alone. Future work will focus on improving the model with constants that are specific to SDF-1α as well as testing methods to better control the degradation of SDF-1α.
ContributorsFreeman, Sabrina Louise (Author) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Thesis director) / Caplan, Michael (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
For this project, I have written a trilogy of interrelated short stories. The three stories are entitled "The Blue Bike," "Heartbeat," and "Elevators." Each of these three stories relate to each other both through the featured characters and the core themes. The little girl from the first story, Amy, is the little sister of the narrator Emma from the second story. The narrator from the third story is the son of Charles (Helen's husband) from the first story, who is also a major character in "Elevators." The gym in the second story also appears in the third story. On a thematic and poetic level, I have used the word "lift" as the inspiration behind and connecting thread between my stories. I have played with the various meanings of connotations of the word, using them to construct the plots of each story. For example, I have used it in the sense of face lifts in the first story, as well as alluded to the idea of planes lifting into the air through making Charles a pilot. There is also the idea of lifting a child into your arms, and lifting yourself or someone else up both physically and emotionally. In the second story, I use shop-lifting, weight-lifting, and the idea of giving someone a lift as in giving someone a ride. The idea of giving someone a lift also occurs in the last story, alongside the connotations of lift with elevators. There are a multitude of other instances in which I have tried to make the word "lift" resonate throughout these stories, though the over-arching theme for me would be the idea of lifting other people up. It is the exploration of meaningful connections between people and the way those connections can heal and "lift." This collection is thus an exercise in creative interconnectivity as well as an exploration of the way people can connect meaningfully to each other.
ContributorsKang, Verity Grace (Author) / McNally, T. M. (Thesis director) / Duerden, Sarah (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Delusions of Grandeur: A Collection of Emotionally Revealing and Probably Not Funny Comedy Vignettes
Description
This creative project, titled What Did You Expect?, is five comedy plays all written and edited by me (with the help of my director Jason Scott), to ideally be performed all in a single night of entertainment. All five plays are united with an overarching theme, which sits somewhere on the borders of subverting expectations and the fortitude of human emotion. I have a long history writing sketch comedy (for a college student), but each of these plays were all written with the specific intention to divert from the style of short-form comedy to longer stories with dynamic characters and plot movement, rather than circling around one singular joke. Each play tells a story placed in a setting with specific expectations, then follows an absurd character as she or he subverts each and every one of those expectations. There are five plays. The first and fifth play comprise the two parts of the story of Leonardo Da Vinci and Mona Lisa, their secret love affair, and it discusses, through a series of misunderstandings and insults, broad realizations about love and art. The second is the story of a therapy session between a seasoned professional and a nightmare patient, and it follows the therapist's absurd descent into (brief) madness, as well as the patient's ascent into (brief) catharsis. The third play serves as a transition; a short monologue by a 13-year old boy delivering a science fair presentation about a hermit crab \u2014 only to realize that he and the crab have more in common than he would like to think. Finally, the fourth play is called Space Cowboy, and to discuss it any further would take all the fun out of reading it. Overall, the project was about self-discovery through a new form of comedy writing, and hopefully it's funny enough for someone to read. Hell, I'd even take a skim. If someone skimmed the plays, I'd consider this creative project a success. You've already read the abstract though, so we're off to a good start! If it's not up to your standards, all I have to say is...what did you expect?
ContributorsMahai, Cameron Jahon (Author) / Scott, Jason (Thesis director) / Maday, Gregory (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Community Music Therapy for Cultural Cohesion is the name of the research initiative to create a community music therapy program that addresses community attitudes toward cultural diversity. The program created is titled "Many Peoples, One Voice." Theories and findings in the field of social psychology regarding the formation of intergroup bias and how to prevent it from taking hold inform the goals of the program. Current practices in and theories on community music therapy inform the content, qualities, and perspective of the program. Information from the field of ethnomusicology inform the specific world music traditions incorporated into the program. The culmination of this research and the program it birthed is described in detail to promote a better understanding of the goals, activities, cultural handouts, additional content considerations, and structure of the program as well as the populations it may serve and the adaptions it may include. Finally, the program is related to the current trends in the field of music therapy and its potential to expand into nontraditional need and population areas is considered.
ContributorsOstrowski, Jennifer Lauren (Author) / Rio, Robin (Thesis director) / Little, Bliss (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
Erosion: A Collection of Poems consists of ten prose poems that explore the processing of trauma through a single lens. We follow the work’s main character as she navigates recovery following a medical trauma in Peru from which she ought to have died. The pieces challenge the readers to immerse themselves within her narrative to understand the isolation that trauma ushers in, as she struggles to know her own newfound aloneness.
While the poems illustrate the complexity of one’s experience with both PTSD and its stages of recovery (e.g., emergency, numbness, intrusive/repetitive, integration), they are anchored in the sensory, the concrete. Amidst the terror of the symptoms at the most basic, raw level, she attempts to reclaim selfhood, which involves wrestling with philosophical suicide, reconciling realities, numbness and the widening of a barrier, stunning intimacies, the craving to feel, and both the desire and the need to connect authentically without being able to satiate such inclinations.
Influenced by the works of Frank Bidart, Claudia Rankine, James Longenbach, and Carolyn Forché, the pieces rely heavily upon rhythm and spacing, imagery, and associative linkages throughout the work to craft a sense of physical, intellectual, and emotional movement within the space.
The collection focuses upon the narrative of one survivor of trauma, and though traumas may be experienced differently, and while PTSD may manifest itself in profoundly diverse ways, the pieces aim to capture the shared foundation of the experience — the isolation and the pure, unadulterated pain — in order to cast a universal veil onto the exploration, providing the audience with insight into one of trauma’s most important facets.
While the poems illustrate the complexity of one’s experience with both PTSD and its stages of recovery (e.g., emergency, numbness, intrusive/repetitive, integration), they are anchored in the sensory, the concrete. Amidst the terror of the symptoms at the most basic, raw level, she attempts to reclaim selfhood, which involves wrestling with philosophical suicide, reconciling realities, numbness and the widening of a barrier, stunning intimacies, the craving to feel, and both the desire and the need to connect authentically without being able to satiate such inclinations.
Influenced by the works of Frank Bidart, Claudia Rankine, James Longenbach, and Carolyn Forché, the pieces rely heavily upon rhythm and spacing, imagery, and associative linkages throughout the work to craft a sense of physical, intellectual, and emotional movement within the space.
The collection focuses upon the narrative of one survivor of trauma, and though traumas may be experienced differently, and while PTSD may manifest itself in profoundly diverse ways, the pieces aim to capture the shared foundation of the experience — the isolation and the pure, unadulterated pain — in order to cast a universal veil onto the exploration, providing the audience with insight into one of trauma’s most important facets.
ContributorsBacon, Lauren Whitney (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Irish, Jennifer (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05