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Master of Liberal Studies Final Projects

Persistent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11299/117677

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Browsing Master of Liberal Studies Final Projects by Title

Now showing 1 - 20 of 74
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    Aesthetics at Work: Using Principles of Art and Beauty to Improve Work Engagement
    (2014-06-06) French, Jennifer
    Organizations today need employees who are creative and innovative, yet most OD and HRD initiatives focus only on technical learning. This project challenges the effectiveness of narrow, skills-based, and transactional design and implementation of employee training programs. The integration of aesthetics into HRD is proposed to improve training and development practices through the integration of imagination and creativity. The implications of aesthetics in HRD are outlined, including more holistic learning programs, improved work engagement, and a legitimate need for artful and art-inspired HRD.
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    American Muslim Organizations: Response to Counterterrorism Initiatives
    (2015-12) Michel, Amber
    Counterterrorism efforts in the US have discriminatorily targeted Muslims through the use of surveillance, infiltration, paid informants and other forms of harassment. In this project, I examine the narrative generated by Muslim organizations nationally and in Minnesota, in response to the intense policing practices of American counterterrorism initiatives. I identified accommodationist themes throughout the national narratives but observed this phenomenon much less frequently at the local level. I observed the damaging and destabilizing effects of such initiatives. I also theorize that proximity to a national stage determines the tone of public narrative.
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    Art as Activism: Displacement Prevention in the Twin Cities
    (2016-12) O’Donnell, Stephanie
    This research uses the history of urban development and media representation as context for understanding current racial equity gaps and growing fears of gentrification and displacement in Minneapolis and Saint Paul neighborhoods. It emphasizes the importance of narrative in the process of changing power structures, and explores the community-building work of artist, Wing Young Huie, and arts organizations, Mixed Blood Theatre and Juxtaposition Arts. During times of change, art can strengthen neighborhood resilience by giving communities control over the telling of their own stories.
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    The Art of Plastic Pollution: Creating Awareness Through Community Engagement
    (2013-05-31) Gravening, Tanya
    Plastic pollution has become an unprecedented crisis that most people contribute to unconsciously because they lack awareness and understanding of the problem. To raise consciousness the artist completed a creative project that called attention to plastic pollution. Sculptures were created from plastic trash collected by a community. Engaging a community in the process of making art reinforces the message and reduces the use of plastic. The project’s research reveals the use of trash in the creation of art, and demonstrates that the aesthetic appeal of art summons a wider audience than the facts and figures of science.
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    Arts Access and the Politics of Empowerment in the Twin Cities
    (2016-05) Metzler, Melissa May
    Arts Access grants , distributed from Legacy Amendment funds, are designed for underserved communities who have the least exposure to visual art. Substantial barriers face individuals in the Twin Cities who are served by these grants. Arts advocates, politicians, and taxpayers should understand more about how the funds are used and how their use can be improved.
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    The Arts Involvement in Social and Political Issues: The Minnesota Arts Community and the Same-Sex Marriage Amendment
    (2013-01-14) Carlson, Cortney
    On November 6, 2012, Minnesota became the first state in the country to defeat a constitutional amendment to limit marriage equality. Focusing on the proposed marriage amendment, this thesis explores how the arts can be involved in social and political issues. Working together or with outside disciplines, the arts can be an asset to advocacy or campaign efforts.
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    Artwork-Mediated Deliberations: How Art Can Awaken Narratives, Emotions and Agency
    (2018) Marks, Ruth Ann
    Deliberation forums using an artwork-mediated journaling facilitation technique were conducted at United Methodist churches on a topic that placed the earth’s natural resources into tension with economic development. In two of the forums, narrative elements played a role in how participants framed their introductory remarks and expressed their values and emotions on the topic. This new deliberation configuration creates a way for participants to readily enter into discussion and engages them to explore a complex topic including how they viewed their own agency.
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    At Least She Died Free: The Possible Fates of Aging American Women Prisoners
    (2016-05) Olson, Sara
    This project examines the reasons for the growing cohort of aging American prisoners overall while focusing on living conditions inside prisons and the potential outcomes for older women in particular. Employing a qualitative analysis, informed by quantitative research and a wide range of carceral literature, the inquiry seeks to discover different possibilities for the futures of these women. The United States incarcerates more women than any other country and, by 2030, one-third of all prisoners will be age 55 or older. Human rights issues relating to prison conditions, punitive sentencing policies, and prisoner desistance perspectives in the United States are explored.
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    Back to Nature for Good: Using Biophilic Design and Attention Restoration Theory to Improve Well-Being and Focus in the Workplace
    (2012-05-30) Green, Judith
    E.O.Wilson's biophilia hypothesis contends that "humans are still powerfully responsive to nature's forms, processes, and patterns." Relying on the strength of this connection, interior spaces can be created to promote physical well-being through the use of design elements that represent nature or aspects of nature. Since even brief exposure to nature has been proven to be beneficial, biophilic design, then, becomes a powerful tool in designing spaces where people work, learn, recuperate and recreate. Attention restoration theory builds on the foundation provided by biophilic design and goes one step further, suggesting that exposure to nature allows rejuvenation of focused attention. Therefore, the workplace is an ideal location for utilizing design principles that incorporate elements of nature.
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    "Changes in Time": A Transgender Journey in Three Acts
    (2012-05-30) Boatner, Ethan
    "Changes in Time" is a trilogy of plays dramatizing three key moments in my transgender protagonist's life over a span of time from the mid-1950s to a somewhat unspecified present. In the first, "Wishes," Lorraine McGowan is a 14-year-old just beginning to see how different she is; in "Dresses," Lorraine is in her mid-30s, on the cusp of emerging into her self; while "Changes" introduces Laurence, now transitioned and in charge of his life. The plays are set in an earlier era to show how powerfully the strictures of culture and time affect a person's ability to seek - or to find - help. Each play casts just one other character - Lorraine's friend, mother, or father - so that each can bring out facets of Lorraine/Laurence's emotions and explore the difficulties involved in claiming his proper gender.
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    The Changing Face of Cedar Lake: 1900 - 1918
    (2013-01-14) Trembley, Neil
    Aided by the photographs of William Wallof, who lived in the Cedar Lake area of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1892 to 1918, this paper explores the effects of the Minneapolis Park Board's lowering of Cedar Lake and railroads' gradual filling in of the shoreline around the lake at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. The author uses concepts from the field of urban environmental history, especially from the work of environmental historian William Cronon, to place the land itself as the paper's central protagonist. The author examines the interaction between the commercial, recreational, and residential communities using the Cedar Lake area and analyzes how these communities acted on and reacted to the changes in the land. The author explores the intended and unintended consequences of lowering the lake and explains how these changes have impacted Minneapolis's contemporary urban environment.
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    Children of Oryx, Children of Crake: Human-Animal Relationships in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy
    (2014-08) Franken, Jessica C.
    Climate change and industrialization have introduced new tensions to human-animal interactions in the United States—tensions explored in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003-2013). Tying the world of the novels to real-life trends, I examine MaddAddam’s portrayal of animals as commodities and objects of consumption, both literal and metaphorical; uncover sites of animal agency; and identify examples of liminality, “becoming-animal,” “becoming-with animal,” and symbiosis. I urge readers to move beyond both apocalyptic resignation and ecotopian naïveté, using MaddAddam as an inspiration for more thoughtful engagements among humans, animals, and the environment.
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    Combating Violent Extremism in Iraq: The Viability of Counterinsurgency Strategy
    (2014-06-06) Hegseth, Nathaniel
    Iraq finds itself plunged back into sectarian violence and on the brink of civil war. The current Maliki government is struggling to combat the brutal Islamic militant group The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). This project explores the viability of using counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) in Iraq to combat this emergent extremist threat. An examination of political and security journals, historical case studies, and social survey data illustrate why the use of COIN to solve this conflict is misguided.
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    Comprehensive Green Infrastructure Planning: The Way Forward for Ecological and Environmental Justice
    (2012-05-30) Stewart, Paula
    Green infrastructure planning is an alternative concept that takes a long-term strategic and holistic approach to urban and regional development. It focuses on limiting sprawl, preserving or reclaiming natural areas of high environmental significance, and reconnecting fragmented landscapes. It includes highly dense, highly energy and resource efficient, racially and socially mixed built environments with urban agriculture as a necessary component. It balances the needs of humans and nature, economic interests, and ecosystem health while furthering environmental justice for all.
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    A Consultancy Approach to Sustainable Agriculture: Creating Meaning through Engagement, Communities of Practice, and Holistic Systems Thinking
    (2012-01-24) Morawiecki, Teresa
    Today’s conventional agricultural practices are created to meet our society’s global demand for food and energy products. However, these conventional practices have begun to create concern for the environment and human health. As a result, a related discipline, known as sustainable agriculture has been created within agriculture itself. Sustainable agriculture is a new concept in that much of society is not familiar with it or understands it. I propose a socially conscious framework that encourages connections, relationships, and knowledge building within sustainable agriculture to create growth and expand its current practice. Harnessing the disciplines of engagement, communities of practice and systems thinking, I encourage the use of consultants to guide sustainable agriculture communities and key players to develop and strengthen the social aspects of their community. I utilize the ADDIE model (analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate) to guide the community through the development of the social aspects of agriculture towards successful implementation. The result will ultimately enable sustainable agriculture communities to grow their practice by creating agricultural products that positively impact the economic, environmental and social aspects of our lives.
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    Copyright or Copyleft? Balancing Image Rights for Artists, Museums and Audiences
    (2013-05-31) Dolen, Jennifer
    Copyright was initially conceived as a bundle of rights of limited duration, designed to benefit society while also protecting the interests of creators. However, as technology and social behaviors have evolved, methods of sharing information no longer fit within copyright’s context. This study examines the issues, with particular focus on the visual arts and images used by arts-related organizations such as museums. Changes that would protect artists while allowing institutions to broadly share images of art works are proposed.
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    Creative Enterprise: The Uneasy Marriage Between Art and Commerce in St. Anthony Park, Minnesota
    (2013-05-31) Makela, JoAnne
    South St. Anthony Park in St. Paul has been a hub of multi-modal transportation, industry, and commerce since the turn of the 20th century. Its main thoroughfare, University Avenue, connects the downtown areas of Minneapolis-St. Paul. It is a haven for artists and small businesses, giving it a subpopulation of creative entrepreneurs. This project looks at how the concepts of transit oriented development and the interests of residents, workers, and developers collide as this avenue is being transformed to accommodate light rail. It also considers how the various players are working together (or not) to have the city of St. Paul designate the area as a Creative Enterprise Zone.
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    A Critical Analysis of Menstrual Health Websites in Relation to the Needs of Pre- and Early Post-Menarcheal Girls
    (2017-12) Sutherland Lembcke, Amy
    Fifty-two percent of teens aged 13-17 go online to find sexual and reproductive health-related information, with internet usage among teen girls growing five times faster than any other demographic. This paper examines how credible and relatable menstrual health websites are to the needs of pre- and newly post-menarcheal girls. While it is shown that 54 percent of the online menstrual health content in my sample is well-rounded and balanced, only 15 percent of it is relatable to a teen audience. Furthermore, over 95 percent of the websites in my search used negative language when discussing menstrual health
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    Crossing Boundaries: From Collective to Prosthetic Memory of Pablo Escobar
    (2014-08) Cervantes Martinez, Ricardo José
    This study analyzes the impact of Narco-Literature and its representative work, La Parabola de Pablo (Alonso Salazar, 2001), on the construction of a prosthetic memory of Pablo Escobar in Colombia. For this analysis I draw first on the theory of collective memory to demonstrate that Salazar’s book is a collective memory product. Second, I draw on the prosthetic memory theory to illustrate the impact of La Parabola de Pablo on the construction of memory in post-Escobar generations. Based on this analysis I conclude that the proliferation of Narco-Literature is impeding the approach to the construction of memories of drug traffic victims by new generations who find in drug lords’ stories a source of entertainment and documentation of a recent past.
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    Darwin and the Digital Body: Evolution, Posthumanism, and Imaginative Spaces of Possibility
    (2012-05-30) Fierke, Jennifer
    Talking about embodiment is political, whether the discussion is about “race,” gender, “ability,” size or body modification. Despite significant leaps forward in equity during the twentieth century, beings continue to be constrained—practically, intellectually, emotionally, sexually, and expressively—because of how we imagine bodies. This project brings embodiment into relief by focusing on two seemingly disparate theories: Victorian evolutionary theory and posthumanism. Both are explored via the dual lenses of nineteenth-century speculative fiction and works of fantastic digital media, providing theoretical and cultural frameworks for challenging dominant paradigms of embodiment.