UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item The Clash between Race and Politics: Marion Barry, the District of Columbia Financial Control Board, and the Fight for Home Rule(2023) Horn, Dennis Marshall; Freund, David M.P.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACTTHE CLASH BETWEEN RACE AND POLITICS: MARION BARRY, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FINANCIAL CONTROL BOARD, AND THE FIGHT FOR HOME RULE Dennis Marshall Horn, Master of Arts 2023 Thesis Directed By: Associate Professor, David M. P. Freund, Department of History In 1995, the District of Columbia (DC) was insolvent. Marion Barry, who had just been elected mayor of Washington, DC for the fourth time was advised that D.C. faced a $722 million deficit which DC was unable to finance. In addition, DC residents were not getting adequate public services like police, schools, trash pick-up and street repair. In response, Congress suspended “Home Rule”, the law which granted DC citizens the right to be governed by a mayor and a thirteen-member citizen-elected council. Instead, Congress empaneled the District of Columbia (DC) Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority (Control Board), a five-member board appointed by the President to take control of the District’s governance. The Control Board stayed in place and Home Rule was suspended from 1995-2001. The Control Board rather than the elected officials had the authority to run the District’s government while leaving in place the mayor and the DC Council to implement the Control Board’s directives. The division between the authority to set policy and the executive function to implement that policy created a conflict of governing objectives between Marion Barry and the Control Board. In accordance with his Civil Rights background, Barry believed that the main purpose of DC government should be economic empowerment for DC’s Black citizens. The Control Board’s main objectives were to gain control of DC finances, cut unnecessary municipal costs and improve city services with the ultimate goal of attracting middle class residents to stabilize DC’s tax base. The resulting housing boom and population growth led to gentrification which priced the less affluent residents, including many Black residents, out of DC. These dueling policy objectives benefitted some to the detriment of others, and vestiges of these competing policies survive today. This thesis, which is largely based upon interviews with key officials in Congress, the Control Board, the Clinton Administration and the DC government, contributes to the scholarly literature by viewing Barry, the Control Board and the fight for Home Rule through the lens of social and racial politics. The thesis concludes that while the Control Board saved Home Rule by putting the DC government back on a sustainable course, it is at best a temporary solution to a broken government. An unelected Control Board does not have either the capacity or the public support to resolve problems that cannot be separated from group identity politics. On the other hand, when Congress determines to intervene in DC governance, DC’s citizens have little defense without voting representatives in Congress.Item DECENT, SAFE, AND SANITARY? PUBLIC HOUSING AND THE ENVIRONMENT OF EASTERN WASHINGTON, D.C., 1940-1965(2020) Shapiro, Justin; Zeller, Thomas; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the relationships between the physical environment and the history of public housing in Washington, D.C. from the 1940s to the 1960s. The environmental features of public housing complexes, as well as those of the landscape around them, significantly shaped the outcomes of the National Capital Housing Authority’s (NCHA) projects. The scale of public housing construction during that period entailed sweeping and dramatic transformations in the landscape. At the same time, the NCHA found itself constrained by material and financial pressures coming from a variety of bureaucratic and institutional sources. Those pressures limited the NCHA’s ability to respond to environmental stresses at various public housing sites. In the absence of adequate responses from the NCHA, the environment played a significant role in determining the outcomes of the District of Columbia’s public housing program. The physical nature of the NCHA’s choice of sites, as well as the materials that it used, turned public housing complexes into sites of environmental injustice rather than the decent, safe, and sanitary housing that the Authority envisioned.Item GREEN AND BLUE SCHOOLS: THE USE OF ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE RAINWATER DESIGN AT GEORGETOWN VISITATION PREPARATORY SCHOOL IN GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON DC.(2012) Jensen, Allison Palmer; Myers, David N; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The artful management of stormwater has a capability to create educational arenas by combining environmentally sensitive rainwater design with education. School settings provide great opportunities for integrating on-site stormwater treatment into many aspects of the curriculum from the sciences to the arts. Presently, urban settings have new initiatives for creating green schools, which covers all levels of sustainability for the campus. This research project focuses on the development of stormwater and water-related designs for Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Georgetown, Washington DC. The main research is an assessment of the school's existing stormwater usage and runoff and also evaluating possibilities for new stormwater management techniques to be a supplement to curriculum.Item High Hopes and High Hurdles: The Early Development of the Washington D.C. Public School System, 1804-1862(2010) Hoffman, Benjamin Polk; MacDonald, Victoria M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this history, I investigate the early development of Washington D.C.'s public schools. Between 1804 and 1862, the school system overcame a long period of failed hopes and underfunding to build a legitimate infrastructure for common schooling before the Civil War. The unique context of Washington D.C. affected the public schools, but themes central to 19th century urban education across the country also surface in the District. The progression of the system from charity schooling to universal education mirrored the development of other public school systems in the Northeast. The evolution of the language of educational advocacy in D.C., from calls for republican virtue to arguments for social reform, similarly correlated with national developments in public education. Outside of these similarities, however, the Southern nature of the District, the presence of national politicians, and the symbolic importance of the national capital, distinguished the experience of Washington's pre-1862 public schools.Item Building Community From Within and Without: A Return to Small Urban Schools(2007-03-12) Castronuovo, Jenny Anne; Bennett, Ralph; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The school environment is an opportunity to inspire learning and instill a sense of curiosity in children. The design of the environment can communicate to students the value our society places on education, teachers, and the students themselves. Despite the overwhelming evidence that points to the academic and social benefits of small schools, most schools today are much larger buildings as a result of perceived economies of scale. These large, impersonal schools are failing to provide an adequate learning environment for students, in spite of numerous studies that show the effects school facilities have on academic achievement. Small schools, located within the students' neighborhood, not only foster stronger interpersonal relationships within the school setting, but also encourage a symbiotic relationship between the school and its community, who both benefit from the resources each has to offer.