Matching Items (302)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Music
- All Subjects: Health
- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
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
This project looks into elementary school lunches around the world, with a focus on nutrition and government involvement. The project uses recent obesity research to determine the extent of childhood obesity and draws connections between obesity rates and each country's school food policies and resulting school lunch meals. The countries researched are Greece, the United States, Japan, and France. An effort is made to find accurate representations by using real unstaged pictures of the school lunches as well as using real, recent school lunch menus. Analysis of the nutritive balance of each country's overall school lunch meals includes explanation of possible reasoning for lower quality or lesser-balanced school lunch meals. In Greece, the steadily rising child obesity rates are possibly due to Greece's struggling economy and the loss of traditional Greek foods in school lunches. In the U.S., the culprit of uncontrolled obesity rates may be a combination of budget and an unhealthful food culture that can't easily adopt wholesome meals and meal preparation methods. However, there have been recent efforts at improving school lunches through reimbursement to schools who comply with the new USDA NSLP meal pattern, and in combination with a general increased interest in making school lunches better, school lunches in the U.S. have been improving. In Japan, where obesity rates are fairly low, the retaining of traditional cuisine and wholesome foods and cooking methods in combination with a higher meal budget are probable reasons why child obesity rates are under control. In France, the combination of a higher budget with school lunches carefully calculated for balance along with traditional foods cooked by skilled chefs results in possibly the most healthful and palatable school lunches of the countries analyzed. Overall it is concluded that major predictors of more healthy and less obese children are higher food budgets, greater use of traditional foods, and more wholesome foods and cooking methods over packaged foods.
ContributorsOsugi, Mallory Nicole (Author) / Grgich, Traci (Thesis director) / Mason, Maureen (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
"EP \u2014 Kyan Palmer" is a compilation of three songs, "Hit List," "Queen Cobra," and "Burn Mona Lisa" all written and recorded by Barrett student, Kyan Palmer. The project explores the process involved in creating recorded music and exposes the vulnerability and self-reflection in writing a song. The following depicts the thought process that came about in the creation of each song from the lyrics, to the vocals, to the production. This paper depicts a journal-like writing style outlining the various events that took place while creating EP \u2014 Kyan Palmer. The bulk of this Thesis/Creative Project was the written, produced, and recorded music attached in the appendix. With that said, the following document is intended to be reflective rather than scholarly and acts as an accompaniment to the audio recordings and video entries.
ContributorsPalmer, Kyan (Author) / Swoboda, Deanna (Thesis director) / Tobias, Evan (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
There are two goals for this honors student project: (1) to determine (using an online survey) what college students do and do not know about cooking and preparing foods and (2) to video record short demonstrations of several cooking skills that college students lack the most based on survey responses. Ultimately, this project hopes to help students develop skills they can use in the kitchen to encourage more cooking at home and less eating out, dietary changes that should lead to more healthful meals and a healthier population. Links to cooking videos: https://youtu.be/ufsVYnfoCQM https://youtu.be/aZCIH33ebZ0
ContributorsKarr, Alexandra Rose (Author) / Johnston, Carol (Thesis director) / Jacobs, Mark (Committee member) / School of Nutrition and Health Promotion (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This creative project includes a self-reflection, four original compositions by Drew Hensley, and supplementary song commentaries. The self-reflection section of the project contains an extensive look into how Hensley's musical experiences and upbringing influenced his song writing process and compositional voice. Specifically, the piece analyzes how Hensley's gravitation to jazz music and musical styles of various cultures influenced the chord structures, rhythms, and melodies in his pop compositions. The track list for the project includes "Do It Anyway," "Puppeteer," "You Really Kind of Suck at Love," and "Drag You Down." Each piece includes lyrics and composed sheet music for vocals and instruments including guitar, piano, bass, and violin. The pieces were supplemented with commentaries describing specific inspirations for both the lyrics and music. "Do It Anyway" discusses Hensley's decision to pursue music and takes inspiration from classic American jazz melodies and Latin jazz rhythms. "Puppeteer" addresses the complexities of control through the metaphor strings. The piece pulls inspiration from the double harmonic scale often associated with Arabic music. "You Really Kind Of Suck At Love" addresses a break up through expertly placed humor and sarcasm. The piece is a new take on the standard 12 bar blues song form. "Drag You Down" tells of Hensley's personal struggles in music using thoroughly developed metaphors and chord progressions native to American rock music of the 1990's and 2000's. Together, the work will be recorded as an Extended Play entitled Do It Anyway. Hensley plans move to Los Angeles, California and use the recordings to pursue a career in pop music performance.
ContributorsHensley, Andrew Michael (Author) / McAdams, Charity (Thesis director) / Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
For my thesis project, I created a website, titled Noise + Heat, to serve as a guide to local music in the Phoenix area. The idea is that someone who is unfamiliar with Phoenix music can visit my site and easily be able to find the latest news, new music releases, live music venues, and be able to familiarize themselves with local artists. I designed and built the site in Adobe Edge Animate, and created all content. The website can be found at this link: www.noiseplusheat.com
ContributorsDinell, Sarah Constance (Author) / Jacoby, Jim (Thesis director) / Dodge, Nancie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Rainbow Connection is an integrated choir with members on and off the autism spectrum. It was founded in the spring of 2012 by Barrett students Ali Friedman, Megan Howell, and Victoria Gilman as part of an honors thesis creative project. Rainbow Connection uses the rehearsal process and other creative endeavors to foster natural relationship building across social gaps. A process-oriented choir, Rainbow Connection's main goals concern the connections made throughout the experience rather than the final musical product. The authors believe that individual, non-hierarchical relationships are the keys to breaking down systemized gaps between identity groups and that music is an ideal facilitator for fostering such relationships. Rainbow Connection operates under the premise that, like colors in a rainbow, choir members create something beautiful not by melding into one homogenous group, but by collaboratively showcasing their individual gifts. This paper will highlight the basic premise and structure of Rainbow Connection, outline the process of enacting the choir, and describe the authors' personal reactions and takeaways from the project.
ContributorsFriedman, Alexandra (Co-author) / Gilman, Victoria (Co-author) / Howell, Megan (Co-author) / Rio, Robin (Thesis director) / Schildkret, David (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Only in the world of acting can an individual be denied a job simply on the basis of their appearance, and in my thesis, I sought to explore alternatives to this through the concept of nontraditional casting and casting against "type", which included the presentation of a full-length production of the musical "Once on this Island" which I attempted to cast based on vocal quality and skill alone rather than taking physical characteristics into account. I researched the history and implementation of nontraditional casting, both in regards to race and other factors such as gender, socio-economic status, and disability. I also considered the legal and intellectual property challenges that nontraditional casting can pose. I concluded from this research that while nontraditional casting is only one solution to the problem, it still has a great deal of potential to create diversity in theater. For my own show, I held the initial auditions via audio recording, though the callback auditions were held in person so that I and my crew could appraise dance and acting ability. Though there were many challenges with our cast after this initial round of auditions, we were able to solidify our cast and continue through the rehearsal process. All things said, the show was very successful. It is my hope that those who were a part of the show, either as part of the production or the audience, are inspired to challenge the concept of typecasting in contemporary theater.
ContributorsBriggs, Timothy James (Author) / Yatso, Toby (Thesis director) / Dreyfoos, Dale (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
This article summarizes exploratory research conducted on private and public hospital systems in Australia and Costa Rica analyzing the trends observed within supply chain procurement. Physician preferences and a general lack of available comparative effectiveness research—both of which are challenges unique to the health care industry—were found to be barriers to effective supply chain performance in both systems. Among other insights, the ability of policy to catalyze improved procurement performance in public hospital systems was also was observed. The role of centralization was also found to be fundamental to the success of the systems examined, allowing hospitals to focus on strategic rather than operational decisions and conduct value-streaming activities to generate increased cost savings.
ContributorsBudgett, Alexander Jay (Author) / Schneller, Eugene (Thesis director) / Gopalakrishnan, Mohan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Much research has been devoted to identifying trends in either convergence upon a neoliberal model or divergence among welfare states in connection to globalization, but most research has focused on advanced industrialized countries. This has limited our understanding of the current state of convergence or divergence, especially among welfare states in developing regions. To address this research gap and contribute to the broader convergence vs. divergence debate, this research explores welfare state variation found within Latin America, in terms of the health policy domain, through the use of cross-national data from 18 countries collected between the period of 1995 to 2010 and the application of a series of descriptive and regression analysis techniques. Analyses revealed divergence within Latin America in the form of three distinct welfare states, and that among these welfare states income inequality, trust in traditional public institutions, and democratization, are significantly related to welfare state type and health performance.
ContributorsJohnson, Kory Alfred (Author) / Martin, Nathan (Thesis director) / Gonzales, Vanna (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-05