Located directly south of Pima County, Arizona, there is a culturally rich community known as Santa Cruz County, Arizona. Santa Cruz County is a smaller community being home to an estimated 47,000 people. Santa Cruz County has a rich history given its proximity to the United States-Mexico border. One example of this rich history can be found at the Tumacacori National Historical Park (NHP) with the attractive and unique ruins. The Tumacacori NHP was once an active Spanish mission that oversaw the religious expansion and communal resources. While the Tumacacori NHP no longer operates in this manner, it does serve an important role in providing visitors with a diverse and immersive look into the history of the region and the Tumacacori mission. While the Tumacacori NHP is meant to be a place for all people to visit, most visitors are not from the local community. The reason for this stems from a lack of educational and engagement opportunities between the Tumacacori NHP and the community youth, mainly due to community members being unaware of the park’s existence or the programs that are offered. This project analyzes and uncovers this disconnect as well as the barriers between the Tumacacori NHP and the Santa Cruz County youth through a research study and the use of children’s literature.

My Honors Thesis was a creative project in which I created a new course, The Road to Women’s Economic Empowerment (SGS 494). This course explores how different societal features affect the agency and economic development of women worldwide. We begin by defining women’s agency and conceptualizing the barriers to women’s economic empowerment. Barriers include gender norms, health conditions, degradation of environmental and/or natural capital, discrimination, and skewness in political representation. Each barrier is given further investigation through case studies in a variety of countries. We end the course by looking at policies and laws in different countries, evaluating their success and failures to improve women’s economic and social autonomy. This is an online course which includes video interviews and podcasts from scholars and activists, a quiz every other week, video posts which enable discussion of material with peers, and a final project to apply the concepts introduced in class.