Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

A successful asylum case is extremely rare in the United States legal system, particularly for Black migrants entering from Haiti who are subject to multiple layers of racism throughout each step of the process. Recent policies, such as Title 42 and Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), have further restricted migrants from initiating this process by blocking their entry and expediting their removals. Title 42, a public health code issued to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, has accelerated the deportation of Haitian migrants, while MPP has forced many migrants to stay in Mexico during their asylum proceedings. Both of these policies have had a punitive effect on migrants attempting to enter the country through “legal manners,” yet they are ineffective ways of stopping migration. Instead, migrants are now crossing through a weaponized southern border due to Border Patrol’s strategy of Prevention through Deterrence. Though there is extensive research on the racism that non-Black migrants face when interacting with enforcement agencies in the Borderlands, there is no research centering the experiences of Black migrants. In this paper, I argue that in spite of this dangerous route, migrants find ways to survive through community-based strategies, including transnational networks. Additionally, I examine local efforts in Mexicali, B.C. to provide support to migrants. This case-study is critical for the understanding of the borderlands as it highlights the detrimental consequences of colonial occupation, racism, and late-stage capitalism. Key words: Black migration, immigration, border enforcement, asylum process

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of Title IX, a piece of legislation which aims for dismantling gender discrimination. Even with such actions females, especially Black females are not proportionally represented in the world of sports. Due to this phenomenon, a study was funded by the Global Sport Institute to look at barriers for Black Women and Girls sport participation. Focus groups and interviews were used to gather data. They utilized a semi-structured approach using open-ended questions, and were recorded and later transcribed. After a secondary data analysis was performed on the focus group and interview transcripts it was found that community views and resources play an important role in the sports participation for Black girls and women. The topics of legislation history, schools, resources, finances, access, and media views were further researched in order to understand their impact on Black girls and women. A public service announcement (PSA) video was created in order to communicate these findings in a more accessible and modern way. The goal of the PSA video is to not only educate the public about this problem concerning Black girls and women but to also empower and encourage communities to fix it.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of Title IX, a piece of legislation which aims for dismantling gender discrimination. Even with such actions females, especially Black females are not proportionally represented in the world of sports. Due to this phenomenon, a study was funded by the Global Sport Institute to look at barriers for Black Women and Girls sport participation. Focus groups and interviews were used to gather data. They utilized a semi-structured approach using open-ended questions, and were recorded and later transcribed. After a secondary data analysis was performed on the focus group and interview transcripts it was found that community views and resources play an important role in the sports participation for Black girls and women. The topics of legislation history, schools, resources, finances, access, and media views were further researched in order to understand their impact on Black girls and women. A public service announcement (PSA) video was created in order to communicate these findings in a more accessible and modern way. The goal of the PSA video is to not only educate the public about this problem concerning Black girls and women but to also empower and encourage communities to fix it.

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.

The purpose of this project was to create a platform where people could tell their stories about how their faith impacted their incarceration and their incarceration impacted their faith. There is no single path to pursuing faith in prison, and each person faces their own challenges and facilitators in doing so. There is power in stories, and we can learn so much from simply listening. Each story told through this project presents a unique experience of pursuing Christianity while incarcerated. This project interviewed three people who had pursued their faith during their time in prison. The goal of these interviews was to hear first hand the experiences of dedicating oneself to Christianity while incarcerated. Their stories were broken up into three sections, pre-incarceration, during incarceration, and post-incarceration to explore how each participant’s faith differed across the three phases. Main topics discussed include what religious services they had access to while incarcerated, what the main challenge they faced in pursuing their faith in prison, and how their faith impacted their reentry into society.

Recovery from exercise has become an evolving aspect of all sports performance. Increased research has led numerous individuals to understand and utilize the modalities that have become available. Methods such as Cold Water Immersion (CWI), Contrast Water Therapy (CWT), and Hot Water Immersion (HWI) are some of the modalities growing in popularity as well as utilization by athletes across all sports. This paper aims to examine and analyze evidence across several research journals that evaluate the effectiveness and also application of these recovery methods. Cold and heat exposures on the body can have a drastic positive impact on athletic performance. However, without the correct knowledge and guidance, these methods can augment, mitigate, and even diminish the effects of adaptation and exercise. This thesis aims to examine research journals and extract specific practices based on empirical evidence. This is to form proper deliverables and protocols for athletes to use for ideal adaptations and recovery for performance.