Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

An increasingly urgent issue in healthcare is the scarcity of available organs for transplant procedures—both live and cadaveric. Recent proposals have pushed for fiscal incentives and a monetary scheme to encourage live donation, specifically for kidney and liver donations. Such propositions are inherently unethical, contradicting the three guiding principles of organ donation: utility, justice, and respect for persons. Furthermore, these additional economic elements will perpetuate the exploitation of vulnerable communities. The intersecting low socioeconomic quintile populations are threatened the most by a monetary scheme; their need to better their financial status allows them to be taken advantage of easily by third parties. This instigates a cycle in which the vulnerable individuals who volunteer to donate for compensation are actually pushed deeper into poverty. In advocating for monetization, it would permit the public sale of human organs—the commodification of the human body. Alternative solutions must be considered in which the donors and recipients are treated not as a means, but as an end in themselves.

I conducted an oral history project of five women with journeys in the Christian faith who had experience working with asylum seekers and refugees in the Phoenix metropolitan area. I explore with this project the perceptions of the helping relationship through the stories of these women and how their beliefs about their faith and work inform each other to pursue meaningful connections for the benefit of others.

This undergraduate honors thesis explores the process and motivating factors associated with immigrants from Mexico who are in the process of becoming U.S. citizens. This project is based on 20 interviews with Legal Permanent Residents (LPR) of Mexican origin who have had lawful permanent status for 20 years or more. While immigrants are eligible to apply for citizenship after five years of being LPRs, most, like my respondents, take longer. Why do LPRs experience a delay of 20 years or more in applying for citizenship? Findings from this study reveal that motivating factors associated with becoming a U.S. citizen are 1) a desire to be socially accepted and integrated by and into American society; 2) to overcome the fear of failing their citizenship interview; and 3) to change the growing anti-immigrant rhetoric by becoming citizens and increasing the presence of naturalized citizens in American society. Respondents also revealed that their bilingual-speaking children were the biggest motivators that helped with accessing information in regard to citizenship and voting.

This thesis examines the three films of the most recent Star Wars trilogy (2015-2019) through a feminist lens, investigating the following question: is the trilogy’s leading woman, Rey, a feminist character throughout her arc? This thesis finds that while the telling of Rey’s story certainly has its feminist moments, it fails in several ways to truly abolish the patriarchal frame/attitude that was ingrained from the first two trilogies, leaving the character of Rey feeling incomplete. As the first female to be the primary protagonist in a Star Wars film, Rey’s strength and light certainly make her a positive female role model for young audiences. However, she is held back by the patriarchal society in which she exists and thus is ultimately reduced to being second-best in her own trilogy to the all-powerful older white men who came before her.

Wounds are a routine, daily reality. It is a testament of the ingenuity of our ancestors to have survived minor or major wounds without the benefit of 21st century techniques or knowledge. They had to design innovative methods for treating injuries through deadly trial and error as well as observation with which modern people must no longer concern themselves. Human beings have long survived without the help of modern, Western medicine through the use ancient remedies. Some of these methods included the use of honey, silver, and leeches. However, these ancient remedies were held in high esteem for good reasons, and in fact, some of these methods are still being used today due to their effectiveness. This thesis serves to inspect the historical background and current uses of these ancient remedies while also inspecting the biochemical properties that preserved their place in modern, Western medicine. Lastly, student experiments were designed based on this research to educate students on biochemical reactions that occur between these ancient remedies and the human body.

In the last 10 years there has been an increase in the number of mental health disorders in the United States. As these individuals with abnormal behavior start to become the norm, psychological research will need to adapt. The present work seeks to explore how to solve this problem by introducing abnormal behavior into social psychology. This can be done by measuring how depression and anxiety are related to aggression. The results from this study show that depression, anxiety, and aggression are all significantly correlated with each other and that only depression was a significant predictor for aggression. Although there are some limitations to this study, the results still suggest that the field of social psychology may need to start looking at how abnormal behavior can affect peoples’ behaviors.