Partisan politics has created an increasingly polarized political climate in the United States. Despite the divisive political climate, women’s representation in politics has also increased drastically over the years. I began this project to see if there is a partisan rivalry between women in politics or a sense of shared “womanhood.” This thesis explores the role political parties play for women in office by examining how they vote on bills, what type of bills they propose, and whether or not they work collaboratively with their female counterparts at the Arizona State Legislature. My main goals for this project are to see how strong or weak political parties are in shaping political behavior at the Arizona State Legislature and to determine if there is a sense of “womanhood” despite different political affiliations. I also explore the role party affiliation plays within women legislators at the Arizona State Legislature.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a great need for United States’ restaurants to “go green” due to consumers’ habits of frequently eating out. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has caused this initiative to lose traction. While the amount of customers ordering takeout has increased, there is less emphasis on sustainability.<br/>Plastic is known for its harmful effects on the environment and the extreme length of time it takes to decompose. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), almost 8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans at an annual rate, threatening not only the safety of marine species but also human health. Modern food packaging materials have included a blend of synthetic ingredients, trickling into our daily lives and polluting the air, water, and land. Single-use plastic items slowly degrade into microplastics and can take up to hundreds of years to biodegrade.<br/>Due to COVID-19, restaurants have switched to takeout and delivery options to adapt to the new business environment and guidelines enforced by the Center of Disease Control (CDC) mandated guidelines. Some of these guidelines include: notices encouraging social distancing and mask-wearing, mandated masks for employees, and easy access to sanitary supplies. This cultural shift is motivating restaurants to search for a quick, cheap, and easy fix to adapt to the increased demand of take-out and delivery methods. This increases their plastic consumption of items such as plastic bags/paper bags, styrofoam containers, and beverage cups. Plastic is the most popular takeout material because of its price and durability as well as allowing for limited contamination and easy disposability.<br/>Almost all food products come in packaging and this, more often than not, is single-use. Food is the largest market out of all the packaging industry, maintaining roughly two-thirds of material going to food. The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that almost half of all municipal solid waste is made up of food and food packaging materials. In 2014, over 162 million tons of packaging material waste was generated in the states. This typically contains toxic inks and dyes that leach into groundwater and soil. When degrading, pieces of plastic absorb toxins like PCBs and pesticides, and then each piece will, in turn, release toxic chemicals like Bisphenol-A. Even before being thrown away, it causes negative effects for the environment. The creation of packaging materials uses many resources such as petroleum and chemicals and then releases toxic byproducts. Such byproducts include sludge containing contaminants, greenhouse gases, and heavy metal and particulate matter emissions. Unlike many other industries, plastic manufacturing has actually increased production. Demand has increased and especially in the food industry to keep things sanitary. This increase in production is reflective of the increase in waste. <br/>Although restaurants have implemented their own sustainable initiatives to combat their carbon footprint, the pandemic has unfortunately forced restaurants to digress. For example, Just Salad, a fast-food restaurant chain, incentivized customers with discounted meals to use reusable bowls which saved over 75,000 pounds of plastic per year. However, when the pandemic hit, the company halted the program to pivot towards takeout and delivery. This effect is apparent on an international scale. Singapore was in lock-down for eight weeks and during that time, 1,470 tons of takeout and food delivery plastic waste was thrown out. In addition, the Hong Kong environmental group Greeners Action surveyed 2,000 people in April and the results showed that people are ordering out twice as much as last year, doubling the use of plastic.<br/>However, is this surge of plastic usage necessary in the food industry or are there methods that can be used to reduce the amount of waste production? The COVID-19 pandemic caused a fracture in the food system’s supply chain, involving food, factory, and farm. This thesis will strive to tackle such topics by analyzing the supply chains of the food industry and identify areas for sustainable opportunities. These recommendations will help to identify areas for green improvement.

In recent years, immigration, especially concerning those individuals immigrating from Central America and Mexico, has become increasingly controversial. Within the last five presidents, policies concerning immigration have shifted. Under President Bill Clinton in 1997, the Flores Settlement, an agreement between immigration activist organizations and the government that created standards for detaining accompanied and unaccompanied minors was made. Following 9/11, in 2005, President George W. Bush increased the amount of money spent on immigration enforcement in an effort to deport more immigrants. President Barack Obama increased the number of deportations from President Bush during his first term. However, in 2014, an already imperfect immigration system was disrupted by an influx of child immigrants. As a result, detention centers were at capacity and unable to accommodate the increasing numbers of immigrants. Child migrants were placed in caged-areas, immigration lawyers and courts quickly became overwhelmed with cases, and children were alone and could barely communicate. This thesis explores the various relationships between accompanied and unaccompanied minors from Central America, the American legal system, and the media and broadcast news outlets’ rhetoric concerning child migrants. Focusing on the ways in which immigrant minors are objectified by the legal system and the framing of immigrants in the media, it is evident that their complex interaction allows for the oppression of the child migrants. Since the American legal system and the media influence and respond to each other, the responsibility of the child migrants’ dehumanization is on both the legal system and the rhetoric of the media and broadcast news outlets.

This project is a critical analysis of the works of 6 American war veterans and how they demonstrate trauma in their narratives. The texts covered here are Philip Red Eagle’s Red Earth (2007), John A. Williams’ Captain Blackman (1972), Roy Scranton’s War Porn (2016), Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried (1990), Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961).

This thesis examines the value creation potential of renovating an existing commercial real estate asset to a medical office. It begins by examining commercial real estate and the medical sector at a high level. It then discusses the various criteria used to select a subject property for renovation. This renovation is then depicted through a modified pitch book that contains a financial model and pro forma.

Though about 75 percent of American waste is recyclable, only 30 percent of it is actually recycled and less than ten percent of plastics disposed of in the United States in 2015 were recycled. A statistic like this demonstrates the immense need to increase recycling rates in order to move towards cultivating a circular economy and benefiting the environment. With Arizona State University’s (ASU) extensive population of on-campus students and faculty, our team was determined to create a solution that would increase recycling rates. After conducting initial market research, our team incentives or education. We conducted market research through student surveys to determine the level of knowledge of our target audience and barriers to entry for local recycling and composting resources. Further, we gained insight into the medium of recycling and sustainability programs they would be interested in participating in. Overall, the results of our surveys demonstrated that a majority of students were interested in participating in these programs, if they were not already involved, and most students on-campus already had access to these resources. Despite having access to these sustainable practices, we identified a knowledge gap between students and their information on how to properly execute sustainable practices such as composting and recycling. In order to address this audience, our team created Circulearning, an educational program that aims to bridge the gap of knowledge and address immediate concerns regarding circular economy topics. By engaging audiences through our quick, accessible educational modules and teaching them about circular practices, we aim to inspire everyone to implement these practices into their own lives. Though our team began the initiative with a focus on implementing these practices solely to ASU campus, we decided to expand our target audience to implement educational programs at all levels after discovering the interest and need for this resource in our community. Our team is extremely excited that our Circulearning educational modules have been shared with a broad audience including students at Mesa Skyline High School, ASU students, and additional connections outside of ASU. With Circulearning, we will educate and inspire people of all ages to live more sustainably and better the environment in which we live.

This thesis looks at three different inventory management strategies that can be implemented into a small business. Using GameSet Style as a research subject, this study analyzes current practices and problems that can be fixed when dealing with an excess amount of inventory. The three inventory management strategies that are compared are demand forecasting, inventory management software, and ABC analysis. Inventory can be a small business's highest cost if not managed effectively. The goal for this thesis is to find the best obtainable solution for a small business like GameSet that can be implemented into their business strategy.

Claiming Impossible Bodies is a collection of poetry and collage exploring gender and sexuality through the lens of the vampire. For this project, I researched various representations of the vampires through folklore, classical and modern literature, film, and pop culture. The liminality of the vampire allows such figures to take different forms and identities, ranging from dark and grotesque creatures, such as the succubus or incubus from mythology, to modern sex-icons, like Edward Cullen from the Twilight Saga. Considering this wide range of performances by vampiric figures throughout history, the poems in this manuscript seek to deconstruct the binaries that vampires live between and expose the liminality in social norms that attempt to define our identities and shape our performances.

The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 exposed issues in the supply chain for N95 face masks. The demand for protective face masks spiked globally and domestically due to the unexpected outbreak of the pandemic. An important issue was the dependency on N95 mask production in countries abroad. The focus on face masks in this thesis accounts for all models of the N95 mask.<br/>This thesis will focus on onshore and offshore production of N95 face masks before and during the pandemic. Specifically, we will focus on (1) the production of masks in 2019; (2) 3M, Honeywell, and Prestige Ameritech’s production changes; (3) the observations made by All The Things LLC, a broker for face masks; (4) the rise of counterfeit masks and actions taken to stop counterfeit production; (4) actions taken by the federal government to aid in production and distribution; and (5) future research opportunities on this topic. This research project into the production of N95 face masks ceased in February of 2021. <br/>This thesis defends the critical need for more domestically produced N95 masks. The U.S. needs to increase the number of N95 masks produced domestically, manage the Strategic National Stockpile to eliminate masks past their shelf life, and create a plan to replenish the stockpile to reduce the possibility of a shortage when the next public health emergency takes place.

For this Creative Project, I decided to explore the elements that set novellas apart from other genres and then experiment writing in the form. In doing so, I took into account three main categories: Plot Structure, Character Development, Style/Format, and then used my findings to write 45 pages of a novella titled Emmy and Me.