Academic literature on the topic 'Rackham School of Graduate Studies'

East Tennessee State University has taken several approaches to offering professional development for graduate students over the past several years. This includes graduate student research grants, thesis and dissertation awards, teaching awards, awards for service for the public good, Graduate Student Success Specialist service, Thesis/Dissertation/Capstone Boot Camp, Add-on Fellowships, GA Fee Scholarship, Thesis/Dissertation Scholarships, formal courses (GRAD), graduate student research magazine, and workshops. These will be briefly described, including funding sources supporting the initiatives. A mention of professional development for faculty will also be presented. There will be ample time for discussion of strategies and sharing of ideas by participants.

This thesis develops and investigates Mixed Reality Architectures (MRA), dynamic shared architectural topologies, which span physical and virtual spaces. A theoretical framework is developed to describe the field of possible architectures. As the result of a first pilot study, this is then extended with the concept of the Mixed Reality Architectural Cell (MRACell). MRACells consist of one physical and one virtual space, linked by a two-way video and audio connection. The video of a real physical space is rendered on an MRACell, which can move within the virtual environment. A projector and screen in the real space renders an image of the virtual environment from the point of view of that MRACell. Inhabitants can move their MRACell in relation to all others within the shared virtual environment, allowing ad hoc as well as planned remote social interaction. In this sense MRACells can be described as novel architectural interfaces extending real physical space, via a shared virtual environment to link to other real spaces. An in-depth study lasting one year and involving six office-based MRACells, used video recordings, the analysis of event logs, diaries and an interview survey. This produced a series of ethnographic vignettes describing social interaction within MRA in detail. The study found that the MRA was effective at supporting remote social interaction between users. Usage patterns appeared to be motivated by awareness and communication or conversely privacy requirements. This usage maintained and strengthened social ties. Social interaction was both visible to others and part of the everyday activities at the respective office spaces. It resulted from the virtual adjacencies introduced by MRA that allowed the ‘spatial’ integration of remote locations. However, the virtual spatial framework making this possible, introduced new topological limitations on the number of concurrent connections that were available. Overall, it was found that the dynamic architectural topology directly affected social interaction, while social interaction itself re-shaped the topology. These findings are of direct relevance to current developments, which aim to use communications media to overcome the spatial dispersion of work groups in modern organizations. Finally, the differences in use that were observed between groups of inhabitants suggest that spatial cognition in Mixed Reality is affected both by the interface technology and by the social practices surrounding it. In response, it is suggested that in order to investigate the new generation of mixed physical and virtual technologies, cognitive science should take into account their affordances as ‘virtual extensions’ to both our bodies and to our environment.

This thesis explores the merits of reflexivity in the processes of creating a performance and of performing research in Drama Studies. In it, I make a case for the validity of autobiographical material as an aid to generating such reflexivity. Through an autoethnographic case study of my work entitled Compositions (a series of performance projects) in which I focus on the theme of migration, I provide an indepth account of my experiences, focusing specifically on the interrelated concerns of body, space and journey in my ritualistic performance. My examination explores the dynamic effects of liminality within identity politics, through which I foreground several issues of concern which I have encountered as an emerging scholar and theatremaker working within an academic institution. I propose that the process of studying drama in a University ultimately requires one to continually negotiate a range of subject positions, whilst finding connections between these various identities that one may take up during the course of one’s studies. By developing an awareness of the overlapping of such identities and inhabiting the spaces in-between subject positions, I demonstrate how taking into account one’s personal lived experience can help illuminate one’s understanding of both the work of art and the research report, as well as the broader contexts in which such practice-based work exists. I illustrate how such an understanding has ultimately maximised the knowledge and learning that I have gathered, and has contributed to the crucial project of developing my authorial voice in writing and performance, which is central to the aims of the Master of Arts degree in Drama.

Enrollment by African American students in U.S. colleges and universities has increased since 2009, but graduation and retention remains low for this group. Within the African American community, education is considered a central aspect of social empowerment; however, the effect of discrimination, bias, and stereotyping are key when considering achievement indices within a cultural framework. The coping mechanisms that African Americans have developed to combat discrimination, bias, and stereotype threat may contribute to poor performance in college. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between racial socialization and African American students' academic motivation, academic self-efficacy, and likelihood of attending graduate school. Drawing from self-determination theory, it was hypothesized that the variables have a positive relationship. A quantitative survey design was used. One hundred-three African American undergraduate students were recruited via convenience sampling to participate in an online survey. Results from a multiple regression analyses indicated no significant relationship between the variables. The findings from this study are not consistent with previous findings that indicate racial socialization has an impact on African Americans' academic performance and motivations, implying the need for future research to include multiple variables that might impact outcomes such as family functioning, access to educational resources, or peer association. Greater numbers of African Americans enrolled in undergraduate programs may, in turn, increase the pool of participants eligible to attend graduate programs. Future research can help parents, researchers, and practitioners better understand the diverse and unique needs of African American youths.

This study utilizes a multi-method approach to analyzing the experience of working class and lower class women's experience in graduate school. A quantitative analysis is used to determine the number of working class and lower class females in graduate school using parents' education as a proxy. Most first-generation females in graduate school were found in Research I universities in the field of Education. A qualitative analysis includes semi-structured interviews of 34 women from two Research I institutions in the Southwest in the fields of Education, Psychology, Health Sciences and Biology. Data consists of the women's definitions of social class, values and experiences as well as their perceptions of graduate school culture and their mobility process during their graduate school experience. The women in this study revealed a contemporary definition of social class unlike academic Marxist and other sociological definitions. Their experiences of graduate student culture reveal a direct conflict with their social class values. Finally, their mobility experience in graduate school reveals contradictory feelings of pride and hiding their accomplishments from family.

This is a descriptive study of 33 graduate school educated women who have chosen to stay home with their children. The study includes a discussion of five major areas: personality characteristics, decision-making process, level of job satisfaction, peer and family relationships, and self-image.;The Methodology for this study involved four data gathering procedures: the demographic data form, the structural interview, the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), and the Bems Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI). Participants were obtained by sending fliers home with children at five preschools in the Richmond, Virginia Metropolitan area.;Demographic Data. The mean age for the group was 34. All were part of an intact two parent family. Fourteen graduate majors were represented. Ninety percent had held jobs which were directly related to their advanced degree. Seventy-six percent are actively involved in a career-related activity.;Personality Characteristics. This high functioning group has a composite profile that shows the ability to achieve independently and they prefer their own judgement. They have strength intellectually. The composite personality is someone who has successfully combined some of the best parts of traditional masculine and feminine qualities.;Decision-making Process. The reasons for choosing to stay home related to feeling that their family was their main priority and they didn't want someone else raising their children.;Job Satisfaction. Neither level of status nor dissatisfaction with their last job was the primary reason for choosing to stay home at the time.;Peer and Family Relationships. Support systems were extremely important to this group. Husbands were also very involved in decision-making, child care, and emotional support.;Self-image. These women generally feel good about their choices and believe this is the right role for them at this time. They are aware of what they have given up, but believe they and their children have gained much more than they could ever give up.

The aim of this work is to question the notion of space that underlies the claimed ‘spatial turn’ in geographical and social theory. Section 1 examines this theoretical literature, drawing heavily on Soja as the self declared taxonomist of the genre, and also seeks parallels with more populist texts on cities and space, to suggest, following Williams, that there is a new ‘structure of feeling’ towards space. Section 1 introduces two foundational concepts. The first, derived from Soja’s misunderstanding of Borges’ story The Aleph, argues for an ‘alephic vision’, an imposition of a de-materialized and revelatory understanding of space. This is related to the second, an ‘ecstatic vision’, which describes the tendency, illustrated through the work of Koolhaas and recent exhibitions on the experience of cities, to treat spatial and material experience in hyperbolic and hallucinatory terms. Section 2 offers a series of theoretical reconstructions which seek to draw out parallels between the work of key theorists of what I term the ‘respatialization’ literature (Harvey, Giddens, Foucault and Lefebvre) and the work of Hillier et al in the Space Syntax school. A series of empirical studies demonstrate that the approach to the material realm offered by Space Syntax is not only theoretically compatible but can also help to explain ‘real world’ phenomena. However, the elision with wider theoretical positions points to the need for a reworking of elements of Space Syntax, and steps towards this goal are offered in section 3. In the final ‘speculative epilogue’ I reopen the philosophical debates about the nature of space, deliberately suppressed from the beginning, and suggest that perhaps the apparent theoretical and empirical versatility of Space Syntax, based upon a configurational approach to space as a complex relational system, may offer an alternative approach to these enduring metaphysical debates.