Virtual Commons offers open access copies of Commonwealth and Departmental Honors Program theses and projects completed by undergraduate students who have submitted them electronically since 2013. The authors of these documents retain copyright to the intellectual property these works represent in their current form.
Theses/Projects from 2014
From Goal-Striving to "Right Intention": A Grounded Theory Analysis of Interviews with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Participants, Julia E. Field
Prisons and Pups: An Examination of Service Dog Training and Their Weekend Families, Kendra Garcia
Beating South Africa's Endless Plague: Making Life Easier for HIV/AIDS Orphans, Shannon Garrity
Why the Arts?, Theresa Girardi
Dynamics of Climate Change: Explaining Glacier Retreat Mathematically, Robert Guillette
Transfer of Arabic Grammatical Knowledge to Spanish Subject-Verb Agreement, Jennifer Herzog
The Past is Present: Exploring Methods of Cooperation Between Archaeologists, Native Americans, and Museums in Southern New England, McKayla Hoffman
Jane Austen and the 21st-Century Classroom, Maureen Jecrois
More than Just Food: Analysis of Food and Social Interactions, Kelsey Kazlauskas
Graphic Designers and Brain Surgeons, Both Highly Trained, Yet Not Interchangeable: The Creation of Promotion Materials for Springfest 2014, Alanna Mehrtens
Using the Objectification Theory Framework to Assess the Unique Body Image Concerns of Women Experiencing Homelessness, Melanie K. Mitchell
Influence of Traditional and Nontraditional Entries on Figure Skating Jumps, Bryanna Nevius
Transcending Borders: Mexican Experiences with Migration, Race and Identity, 1910-1965, Marissa Nichols
Does Parental Divorce Have an Affect on a Child's Education?, Brittany Odenweller
Visions of the Amistad: American Public Engagement with the Amistad Story, Samuel Perkins
Grafton Ave.: A Screenplay, Christopher Porazzo
Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Kerrie Pratt
A Statistical Analysis of the Role of Critical-Thinking Games in College Students' Quantitative Reasoning, Melissa Radevicz
Exploring the American Revolution from Multiple Perspectives through Critical Literacy Discussions in a Fifth-Grade Classroom, Janelle Roberts
The Construction of Ethnoreligious Identity Groups in Syria: Loyalties and Tensions in the Syrian Civil War, Eliott Rousseau
Exploring Omissions from Historical Chronicles in Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy, Christopher Roy
Elementary Students' Strategies for Solving Visual Logic Tasks, Camille Schulman
Strategic Analysis of Casino Expansion into Massachusetts, Nicole Sherman
The Power of the Gaze: Self- and Partner-Objectification Within Same-Sex Relationships, Diane Smedberg
Adam Smith: Providing Morality in a Free Market Economy, Kendra Tully
Colonization through the Eyes of Dolls: An Iconography of the Doyle Doll Collection, Erika Umali
No One is Alone: Responsibility, Consequences, and Family in Into the Woods, Jennifer White
A Revisionist Herstory: Self-Determination in Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Genevey Ziino
Theses/Projects from 2013
Doomed: A Speculative Work of Science Fiction, Caitlin Angelo
Stepping Into Nationhood: The Threat of Emasculation in Irish Society, Lauren Baker
Abandoning Standard Assumptions in Pareto Optimization Models: Simulating Market Scenarios with Incorrectly Estimated Preference Structures, Joshua Bernard
LGBT Homeless Youth in Boston, Massachusetts: Experiences Regarding Resources and Potential Barriers, Brittney Connery
Songs for the Nightingale, Michael Cotter
A Bull Market for Moll Flanders: A Female Capitalizing on the Changing Economic Climate of Eighteenth Century London, Sarah Damewood
LGBT Aging and Elder Care, Brian Diehl
Common Fundamental Domains for Lattices of the Same Volume, Ashley Erwin
Smooth as Raven's Claws, Kyle Farnworth
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): Creating a Collective Identity, Megan Fletcher
The Social Construction of Literary Understanding in a 3rd Grade Classroom During Interactive Read-Alouds, Adriann Flint
Why Words Matter: Framing Immigration in America, Kayla Harvey
Behind the Scenes: A Look at Socio-cultural Messages in Situation Comedies and their Effects on Gendered Messages, Victoria S. Hogan
Ex-Prisoners' Perceptions of the Availability And Effects of Services in Correctional Settings, Jenna Houston
The Object of Desire: How Being Objectified Creates Sexual Pressure for Women in Heterosexual Relationships, Tiffany Hoyt
"How Beauteous Mankind Is": Utopian (In)humanity as Questioned by Shakespeare and Answered by Huxley, Jason Kelliher
Renaissance Drama and Magic: Humanism and Hermeticism in Early Modern England, Caitlin A. Larracey
Kinematic Analysis of Hip and Knee Joints between Barefoot and Shod Treadmill Running, Stephanie E. Lloyd
A Study in Sherlock: Revisiting the Relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, Rebecca McLaughlin
A Study of Women through 18th-Century Literature: as Reflected by the Works of Jane Austen, Or, a Re-visioning, Nicole Miller