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- Creators: Department of English
- Creators: School of Politics and Global Studies
- Resource Type: Text
Informed by Pope John Paul II’s life and writings, this project takes a faith-based, humanities approach to addressing the issue of homelessness. The thesis combines writing, music, and Catholicism to inspire audiences and motivate them to make tangible changes for those in need. Through poetry, creative nonfiction, and letters, the written portion of the thesis depicts true, individual encounters with people who are homeless. These stories are connected by themes of nature, simplicity, beauty, humility, and human dignity. The creative portion of this thesis is a music video with an original song called Unspoken Words. The song includes violin, ukulele, and vocal tracks, lyrics rooted in Pope John Paul II’s poetry, a strong emphasis on the importance of acknowledging and affirming human dignity, and a call to action at the end. The call to action invites audiences to, if possible, donate financially to organizations within the Diocese of Phoenix, which are linked in the video description. These organizations include the Office of Mental Health Ministry, the Humanitarian Aid Fund for Ukraine, and the Charity and Development Appeal. The video also invites all audience members to be kind with intention in order to mentally, emotionally, and spiritually brighten the lives of those around them.
Studies have previously found a significant relationship between student writing center usage and demographic factors including gender, GPA, and English-language proficiency (Salem, 2015). Additional research has been conducted on writing center outcomes and student conceptions and misconceptions of writing centers as academic resources. However, previous scholarship has attested to the need for continuous research into writing center usage patterns and the factors that affect them. This will allow centers to make the necessary changes and improvements to become more accessible and inclusive for the benefit of all students. The present research contributes to the ongoing discussion about why students choose to use or not use the writing center and how their identities and pre-existing ideas about the center inform this decision. Further, it addresses research gaps by surveying students in an honors college setting at a large public university and considering new decision-making factors such as race, mental health, and social stigma. By comparing students demographics and impressions of the Barrett Writing Center (BWC) on the ASU campus, the study draws conclusions about the significant gap between positive perception and usage, the influence of social anxiety and stigma amongst honors students, the successes and failures of tutoring for second language English speakers, and the benefit derived by students who attend multiple writing center sessions. Suggestions to improve the BWC and guide future research are offered based on these observations and significant trends in the data.