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 2019
South African Water Rights and the Legacies of Apartheid, Rachel Tarantino
The Effects of Beetroot Juice Consumption on Maximal Oxygen Consumption, Margaret Vacher-Weiss
Mindful Phone Use, Gwendolynne Weissinger
Visions of Hell, John Wilson
Samuel Johnson and Thomas Jefferson: Their Contradictory Lockean Responses to the Legality of the American Revolution, Joshua Wright
High Speed Mid Altitude Aircraft Project, Eric Yan
Analyzing and Estimating Cyberattack Trends by Performing Data Mining on a Cybersecurity Data Set, Chan Young Koh
Theses/Projects from 2018
Characterizing Nab2 Phosphorylation and its Role in Regulating Egr Transcription Factors, Kimberly Abt
Growing Social Connection: A Case Study of a Therapeutic Farm Community, Theresa Aldrich
Middle East Media Landscapes: Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, and Yemen, Cody J. Baker
Unseen and Unheard: The Experiences of Immigrants Who Work as Low-Level Healthcare Providers, Daniela Belice
“Only a Passing Idiocy”: The Ku Klux Klan in Maine State Politics, Erin Best
Kinetic studies on the aqueous chemistry of the glutathione-methyleneoxindole conjugate to model its inhibition of glyoxalase I, Ariane Borges
On Hold: Relationships in the Age of Mobile Phone Distraction, Isabel M. Bourget
Development of a High-throughput Screening Assay for Potential Inhibitors Against DNA Polymerase Eta, Keri Bryson
Art Created by Women in Response to Social Change: A Study of Women’s Identity from the Twentieth Century to the Present, Kathleen Carroll
Rubik’s Cube: The Invisible Solve, Allen Charest
Searching for Identity: Connecting Students to Young Adult Literature in the Classroom Through Language, Samantha Correia
Cruel and Unusual: The Eighth Amendment and the Overuse of Solitary Confinement in American Corrections, Brandon Craig
Together but Separate: Uncovering School Segregation in 2018, Eliza Davern
You Are Included: The Effectiveness of Diversity and Representation of Ethnic Minorities in TV Advertising, Eric DeBenedictis
More Than Meets the Eye: Challenges Men Face with Personal, Private, and Public Silence When Seeking Help Academically, Danielle Dupuis
How do Mindfulness Practitioners Describe Pausing?: A Qualitative Interview Study, Benjamin G. Feldman
The Novel Mystique: Depictions of Women in Novels of the 1950s, Sarah Fender
A Psychoanalytic Reading of Haruki Murakami’s “The Little Green Monster,” “All God’s Children Can Dance,” and “TV People”, Sara Ferreira
The Role of Instructional Gesture in Learning Science Concepts in Undergraduate Students, Andrea J. Fogarty
Does International Law Change State Behavior?, Brett Franzie
A Smithian Perspective on Aristotle's Virtuous Friend, Meagan Fraser
Facebook: Friend or Foe? Exploring the Relationship Between Social Media Use, Social Comparison, Self-Esteem and Affect, Elizabeth F. Gallinari
Human Factors and the Road to Single Pilot Operations, Michael Gearhart
The Restoration of UNIX: Emulating UNIX version 1.0 on a 16-bit DEC PDP 11/20, John J. Gilmore Jr.
Understanding Educators’ Perceptions of Mindfulness on Students’ Academic Skills, Behavior, and Overall Well-Being, Sara E. Gottfried
The Impact of Proposition 2-½ Overrides: Does a Town’s Approval or Rejection Impact Property Values?, Rebecca Guerrier
The Future of Racial Classifications: Exploring Race in the Critical Dystopia, Meghan Hartnett
Vengeance is Ours: Safe Spaces and Critical Empathy in Horror Films, David S. Hooker
Psychological and Demographic Differences of BDSM Practitioners, Sabrina Jefferson
“No Happy Woman Writes”: An Analysis of Novels of Seduction and Domestic Fiction in Early American Literature, Janene Johnson
On the Toughness of Some Johnson Solids, Sean Koval
Comparing Ratios of Depression Between Female to Male MCI Patients and the General Population, Abbie Levinson
Why do you Want to be a Teacher? Getting to the Bottom of the Teacher Retention Problem, Jamie MacDonald
Exploring Dynamical Systems: Number of Cycle and Cycle Lengths, Christine Marcotte
Fighting for Their Lives: Why the Marginalized Irish from the 1840s-1910 Dominated American Prizefighting, Owen Marshall
Marriage in Victorian England, Cheryl Ann McDonnell
How America Permitted the Great Recession, Robert A. Moss III
Exploring the Proportion of Prime Numbers in Quadratic Extensions of the Integers, Jamie Nelson
Welcome to the Real World: A Skeptical Examination of Working Class Life, Ryan O'Connor
Public Perceptions of Police Interactions With Juveniles, Jillian Orr