Arts and Humanities – Page 4 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Arts and Humanities

Beyond the Walls of Our Classrooms: Creating Authentic Audiences for Students

When teachers extend the purpose of an assignment beyond the walls of a classroom, students begin to care. Through an exploration of creative-writing pedagogy and the latest advancements in technology and publishing, this research aims to explore how to implement authentic audiences in secondary ELA and creative writing classrooms. Whether that be through letter-writing, community-based projects, or submitting work out to literary journals, the hope is that students will be able to confidently answer questions like “Who are we writing for?” and “Why does this matter?” To make the findings of this research more accessible to the intended audience of secondary teachers and students, this research will adopt and be delivered through one of the proposed forms of publication: the zine.

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Mapping Prehistoric New World Hunter-Gatherers

This project aims to map hunter-gatherer sites in the Americas and compare them to environmental variables such as NPP. The goal is to see if there are areas where hunter-gatherer density appears inconsistent with environmental sustainability. The aim of this research is to determine if there are places researchers should look for hunter-gatherer sites currently being neglected, which would not be considered with current knowledge. My role in the project involves mapping hunter-gatherer sites starting in Peru, using previous databases and existing literature (via google scholar) about sites in Peru. This is what is ultimately compared to models of environmental sustainability. My research so far suggests there will likely be numerous hunter-gatherer sites near the Pacific coast of Peru. Whether this is based on environment or archaeological bias is uncertain. I hypothesize that there will be areas with environmental sustainability that have few hunter-gatherer sites and the same vice versa.

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Bronze Age Metallurgy in Ayia Irini, Kea, Greece and Dhaskalio-Kavos, Keros, Greece

During the Bronze Age much metallurgical activity and trade occurred throughout the Cycladic archipelago in the Aegean Sea. In this island cluster there is currently only a limited amount of knowledge of metallurgical activity. Overall this study aims to analyze how the Cycladic site Ayia Irini, Kea, Greece–which appears to be a major hub of metallurgical significance throughout much of the Bronze Age–compares with recently investigated sites. To test the hypothesis that Ayia Irini is a metallurgical output and trade hub, the site was compared with recent finds from other Cycladic sites. An extensive search of the last 20 years of Cycladic finds in the British School at Athens’ Archaeological Reports journal was conducted. Additionally a case study specifically comparing Ayia Irini with a well-known major site–Dhaskalio-Kavos, Keros, Greece–was undertaken. Ultimately the results show that Ayia Irini seems to be a major metallurgical site of the Cyclades archipelago, with both similarities to and differences from Dhaskalio-Kavos, which also preserves extensive evidence for metallurgical activities. Since metallurgy was of paramount social and economic importance in the Aegean region during the Bronze Age, Ayia Irini and other sites in the Cyclades should be further investigated.

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Creative Writing & Publishing

My project is a creative writing mentorship. My mentor holds weekly workshops with me and my peers to help us improve our creative writing. Two of us, including me, focus on poetry, while the other two write fiction. In addition to workshops, the other side of the project involves researching literary journals and compiling them into a database to use as a reference for when we are ready to submit our finished works to them for potential publication. The purpose of the project is to improve my creative writing skills and potentially become a published writer.

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Constructs of Race & Ethnicity and Latinx Adults’ Perceptions of Discrimination

Hate crimes and domestic terrorism have spiked during and following the 2016 US Presidential election (www.justice.gov, 2019). The current project zooms in on the US Latinx and immigrant Latino community, as a demographic perceived to be targeted by President Trump. The FBI’s annual statistics also show an increase racially motivated crimes: begging the question of the relationship between the upticks in hate crimes and the former President’s rhetoric. This study examines how the Trump presidency actually impacted Latinx/o/a community. Secondary research questions include: Is there a relation between residential location and racism, such that people of color feel pressure to assimilate to become more “ËœAmerican’? What is the nature of the Expat identity for immigrant people of color in the US, can they really ever ‘belong’? What factors contribute to the disproportionate amount of legislation targeted at immigrants from Mexico, Central, and South America? Data analysis includes statistical models (SPSS) and comparative studies, based on Garcia Coll et al. (1996)’s Integrative Model. This research will serve to educate diverse populations in the US, particularly those that may have also been impacted by the former presidential administration. We conclude with implications for the study’s findings can bring, in terms of population unity and healing.

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Understanding the Cost Decisions of International Arbitration

Nirali Patel Pronouns: she/her Research Mentor(s): Katherine Simpson, Arbitrator Research Mentor School/College/Department: Simpson Dispute Resolution, Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021 Session: Session 5 (3pm-3:50pm) Breakout Room: Room 3 Presenter: 6 Event Link Abstract For privacy concerns this abstract cannot be published at this time. Authors: Nirali Patel Research Method: Library/Archival/Internet Research

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Institutional Responses to Substance Using Pregnant Women

Our research looked into institutional responses to substance-using pregnant women. Institutions include entities such as the criminal justice system, the medical system, the legal system, and the child welfare system. Data gathered from state laws and statutes, newspapers, court cases, medical guidelines, and more were examined to put together a picture of how different United States entities worked together and separately in cases of substance-using pregnant women. Historical responses, such as those used during the 1980’s “crack epidemic”, as well as modern responses, such as those being used during the “Opioid epidemic”, were examined.

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Discrimination in Selective Enrollment Chicago Public High Schools

On the surface, the CPS (Chicago Public Schools) selective enrollment system seems to provide students with many opportunities and offers students access to a quality education at a high-performing school. Recently, however, both students and teachers have been speaking up about discrimination at these schools. This study will evaluate the different types of discrimination that students experience within the top five selective enrollment schools and discuss possible solutions to ending discrimination. This study specifically examines the question: What are the impacts of selective enrollment school practices on educational equity in urban school systems, particularly in Chicago Public Schools? A qualitative mixed methods study was used to analyze the student experience at these schools. We collected data from instagram posts from BIPOC Instagram pages from four of the five schools that were studied. Teacher interviews and local school council meetings were also used to gather information on the student experience at these schools. From these sources we found that racism and other forms of discrimination from teachers and staff members often can make students feel as if they are not wanted or do not belong at their high school. In addition to the issue of white supremacy, students also report that these selective schools often don’t consider other struggles that their students face when it comes to socioeconomic struggles. Many students also felt like their schools did not support them when they faced sexual harassment in these schools. All of these types of discrimination lead to a culture of discrimination where students feel like their concerns are being ignored by the school. This paper also looked into possible solutions for these issues of discrimination which included anti-racist staff training, minority teacher recruitment/retention, listening to student input, anti-racist curriculum and creating an anti-racist culture at schools.

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Jejueo Talking Dictionary

Jejueo Talking Dictionary is a project that aims to preserve the Jejueo language through an interactive online dictionary. Jejueo, a variant of the Korean language spoken in Jeju Island, South Korea, is an endangered language. This means that not many people speak it today, and those that do are aging. It is important to prevent this language from disappearing and that is the goal of this project. The website housing Jejueo Talking Dictionary was built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on a Bootstrap framework. The dictionary includes words and phrases that are translated between Jejueo, Korean, and English, and there are audio/video files in which native Jejueo speakers use each word. There are multiple pages to navigate to in addition to the main search feature, such as an ability to add suggested words and lists of the words by category. As the online dictionary is improved upon and published on the web, the aim is to have users interacting with it to learn more about Jejueo and hopefully increase speakers of the language. Future developments of adapting the dictionary to an app format and creating a language learning app directly accessible to viewers will help to streamline the learning process.

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Jejueo Talking Dictionary

The Jejueo Talking Dictionary is an online web-based application that is intended to serve as an online dictionary and language-learning tool for a critically endangered language, Jejueo. Jejueo is spoken by roughly 5,000 to 10,000 people living in the Jeju Province, located in South Korea, and is currently undergoing contact from Standard Korean. On top of this, most fluent speakers of Jejueo are over 75 years of age now. To preserve this language in a digital form, we are compiling videos, audio files, and text entries together into a website and a mobile Android application. All of this data will be made available in Jejueo, Korean, and English, so that users of this technology can use any of those languages to browse the Jejueo Talking Dictionary. Our presentation will entail the process of creating this product, from gathering data to building the website itself.

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