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.
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Item Biosolids and Compost For Urban Soil Restoration and Forestry(2022) Keener, Emily Cathryn; Pavao-Zuckerman, Mitchell A; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Elements of urban soil quality such as compaction and low organic matter are underexamined, important challenges to urban afforestation. In this Beltsville, Maryland field experiment, I examined biosolids and compost as amendments to improve soil quality and planted tree survival in a degraded urban proxy soil and identified correlations between soil properties and tree survival. Organic amendments increased organic matter content, decreased bulk density, and had no effect on tree survivorship compared to controls. Effects on soil were more profound and lasting with compost than with biosolids. Soil organic matter and bulk density were correlated with tree survival early in the study and microbial respiration was correlated with tree survival throughout the study. High tree mortality was driven by transplant shock, limiting insights from tree response data. This study highlights the importance of soil quality and good planting practices in future research.Item A Survey of Bees in the University of Maryland Campus Area(2021) Striegel, Theodore; Hawthorne, David; Entomology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I sampled the wild bee community in the University of Maryland campus area in College Park, Maryland for one season and combined those data with that from previous years. The protocol was modified to significantly expand the geographic scope of the survey, covering a much wider spatial range of the campus. This combined data was used to assess population trends, best practices, and determine whether or not the expanded protocol offers advantages in capturing local wild bee diversity and/or analytical benefits over the previous survey. New data allowed for characterization of the local wild bee community and discerned a landscape driver of spatial variance in local diversity. Appropriateness of different geographic parameters was found to depend on survey goals.Item The Culture Beyond the Content: Does an “Overcoming Testimony” Empower Effective Urban Mathematics Teachers to Reach their Students?(2021) Smith, John Franklin; Wiseman, Donna L; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Do effective mathematics teachers with under-performing classes in urban settings possess cultural characteristics making them more effective than others?” This study evaluates the personal histories and beliefs of twelve qualifying middle school mathematics teachers to determine the role experiences and beliefs play in how teachers transform challenging classes into relatively high achievers. Effective is defined as recommended by their principals, coupled with demonstrated growth through public data of the state’s PARCC* assessment. Urban is defined as schools having close proximity to a major U.S. city, comprised of over 80% minority student populations and over 60% FARMS** recipients. Based on the literature and anecdotal evidence, a conceptual framework called the “overcoming testimony”- missionary zeal, community bonding, legacy, activist ideology and guardian angel - was designed to evaluate interview data. An interview protocol was administered and the interviews were videotaped and transcribed for further study. The impact of the teachers’ personal histories on their current practices was assessed using a coding system as the transcripts were evaluated. The results showed strong alignment with Fives and Buehl’s (2012) findings whereby beliefs “filter, frame and guide” decision-making. Beliefs and experiences filtered pedagogical choices and methods. The “overcoming testimony” elements framed their resiliency and commitment to their students’ welfare. Views on culture and content guided the teachers toward creating learning environments that promoted achievement. The data demonstrated an emerging community-bonding dynamic between African-American teachers and their Hispanic students. The results indicate effective teachers may succeed in part due to negative experiences they endured as students. I argue that based on the prevalence of beliefs and experiences evident in the interviews, these perspectives serve as a cultural lens enabling teachers to effectively engage grade-level mathematics students to demonstrate proficiency on state assessments. Without this lens, content mastery alone could be insufficient to the task.”*The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers **Free and Reduced MealsItem Spatio-temporal mechanisms of urban mosquito coexistence in Baltimore, MD(2019) Saunders, Megan Elizabeth Maria; Leisnham, Paul T.; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Understanding the interactions governing species distributions and community structure are of fundamental ecological importance. Mosquitoes that utilize container habitats at their larval stage usually engage in strong competition and competitive exclusion is expected; however, numerous container-utilizing mosquito species co-occur in the same individual container habitats and regionally coexist. I investigated spatial and temporal mechanisms governing the distributions and abundances of the competitively superior invasive Aedes albopictus and resident Culex spp. mosquitoes in four neighborhoods with varying socioeconomic status in Baltimore, Maryland. Specifically, I investigated if the findings from both field surveys and field and laboratory experiments were consistent with four spatial and temporal hypotheses for species coexistence that act at different scales: spatial partitioning among neighborhoods and blocks, seasonal condition-specific competition, aggregation among individual container habitats, and priority colonization effects within individual containers. I found modest but important evidence for all hypotheses that could each facilitate Culex spp. coexistence with Ae. albopictus. I found clear neighborhood effects, with low SES neighborhoods supporting higher abundances of mosquitoes than high SES neighborhoods overall, but with the highest abundances of Ae. albopictus in low SES neighborhoods and Culex spp. being more variable among neighborhoods. Culex spp. abundances were higher in the early summer compared to mid-summer peaks in abundance for Ae. albopictus. Laboratory competition trials showed increased aggregation of Ae. albopictus had a slight positive effect on Culex spp. population performance, and aggregation conditions sufficient for coexistence among experimentally placed ovitraps and negative associations of Aedes and Culex genera in resident containers in the field. Lastly, I found that priority colonization of a container leads to stronger population performance for both species, and that resource availability seems to affect Culex spp. more than competition. The results of my dissertation have revealed the role of several ecological mechanisms that may facilitate the regional coexistence of Culex spp. with Ae. albopictus and is among the first bodies of work to do so. Due to their roles in the transmission of human pathogens, future examination of other spatial and temporal mechanisms of coexistence between Ae. albopictus and resident Culex spp. is warranted.Item The stormwater retention benefits of urban trees and forests(2018) Phillips, Tuana Hilst; Pavao-Zuckerman, Mitchell; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The use of urban tree canopies as strategies to mitigate stormwater runoff is limited in part by a lack of empirically observed data. This thesis quantifies soil infiltration capacity in 21 forest patches in Baltimore, Maryland, and reports results from a meta-analysis on urban tree transpiration. Results show that the degree to which soil infiltration and tree transpiration functions reduce stormwater runoff depends on soil physical properties, tree characteristics, and management drivers. Yet, results conservatively estimate that Baltimore forest patch soils are capable of infiltrating ~68% of rainfall. In addition, urban trees transpire ~1.7 mm of water per day in the growing season or ~0.8 mm of water per day on an annual basis, an amount of water that equals approximately 26% of the annual rainfall in the Baltimore region. Thus, urban trees and forests impact urban hydrology and are an important component of stormwater green infrastructure in built environments.Item The Contemporary Local Market: Creating a Network of Food Distribution(2017) Shanklin, Eli William; Lamprakos, Michele; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the United Nations’ 1996 World Food Summit, the concept of “food security” was defined as existing “when all people, at all times, have physical, [social] and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture, measures food security on four levels—high, marginal, low and very low, with income and access as two of the major factors contributing to the problem of food insecurity. The country is dotted with hundreds, if not thousands, of food deserts—rural, suburban and urban census tracts—wherein the inhabitants do not have access to fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthy whole foods. Today, 1 in 7 households, which equates to approximately 17.5 million households, are estimated to be food insecure. This thesis seeks to address the problem of food insecurity by creating a community-supported agricultural prototype in which nutritious foods are made accessible to an underprivileged neighborhood while debunking the beliefs surrounding the practices, processes, and sourcing associated with food production and distribution (e.g. “Farm to Shelf”).Item Contemporary Spiritual Re|Image|ination: Relating the Traditions of the Episcopal Church to Modern Society(2015) Bennett, Patrice Michelle; Noonan, Peter; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the American colonial era, Anglicans associated with the Church of England founded parishes and built churches throughout the colonies. After the Revolutionary War, many of these Anglicans refused any sort of loyalty toward the Church of England, and thus established the Episcopal Church. Early churches were often central within individual settlements and central to the lives of its inhabitants. Over the centuries, however, the Episcopal Church has migrated to the peripheries of communities and has diminished in importance to much of the populace. Over the last decade membership in the Episcopal Church has decreased by nearly twenty percent, despite progressive attempts by church leadership to evolve with an ever-changing society. Utilizing the canon and customs of the Church as a guide, this thesis will explore how the Episcopal Church can respond and relate to a diverse contemporary society while maintaining its rich history and traditions so vital to its tenets, and explores what role innovative architectural thinking can play to support that evolution.Item The Rebel Cafe: America's Nightclub Underground and the Public Sphere, 1934-1963(2014) Duncan, Stephen Riley; Gilbert, James B; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)From 1934 through 1963, New York and San Francisco nightspots were community institutions and public forums for radical cultural producers, intellectuals, and political dissidents. This dissertation explores bars, nightclubs, and coffeehouses in bohemian Greenwich Village and North Beach as nodal points in alternative social networks connecting patrons and performers marginalized by their Left politics, race, gender, or sexual orientation. It traces unconventional ideas from subterranean domains through their dissemination by the mass media, examining how local political discourse and cultural diffusion informed social change in the twentieth-century United States. This study illuminates nightclubs' cultural function, shedding new light on familiar subjects such as the Beat Generation, jazz, civil rights, and social satire, and linking the Left's Cultural Front of the 1930s to 1950s dissident culture. Nightspots provide useful models to study identity formation and oppositional political consciousness, as patrons and performers challenged dominant social norms through cultural avant-gardism, explorations of sexuality and gender, and interracial alliances. Tourism, meanwhile, contributed to the extension of new social norms into the mainstream. Moreover, drinking establishments served a vital function within the public sphere as spaces of discussion and debate which both critiqued and contributed to mass-media content. As outspoken nonconformists clashed with conservative critics, the result was sometimes legal woes for oppositional figures, from the anarchist libertarians who met in urban cafes in the 1930s to gay-rights activists and the controversial comic Lenny Bruce. Yet the art, literature, music, and satire that emerged from the nightclub underground of the 1950s proved to be forces for social liberation, showing the relation between culture and politics. Subcultural networks provided psychological and material support to the budding gay liberation and feminist movements, as well as the Black Freedom Struggle. By examining the use of public space and built environments, and charting the confluence of culture, politics, and urban geography, "The Rebel Cafe" demonstrates how historical subjects transformed American society by investing nightspots with significance as sites of public discourse.Item AN EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRACTICING URBAN SCHOOL COUNSELORS' COLORBLIND RACIAL IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE FACTORS SUCH AS SUPPORTS, BARRIERS, SELF-EFFICACY AND OUTCOME EXPECTATIONS, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE INTEREST AND COMMITMENT(2012) Gonzalez, Ileana; Bryan, Julia; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Groups of American students are learning at alarmingly different rates. This disparity in education is seen disproportionately in schools in urban areas, where students of color and low income students are concentrated in highly segregated areas. In urban areas, the effects of poverty, racism, and isolation are compounded by stressful environments that make learning difficult for students as is evidenced by the various educational gaps. The inadequate and under-resourced education provided for children in urban schools results in a dramatic loss of human potential and economic loss to the nation's economy. Professional school counselors, who work in the urban context, are in a unique position to remove systemic barriers and create equitable opportunities for learning for these students. School counselors need multicultural counseling competence in order to provide appropriate services to these diverse urban student populations; however, multicultural awareness, knowledge and skills are not enough if counselors are to create systemic change. School counselors must work as social justice advocates in order to tackle the pervasive systemic barriers that plague urban students. Through increased social justice self-efficacy, positive social justice outcome expectations, and social justice supports, and minimal barriers to social justice, school counselors may become more interested in and committed to social justice advocacy. The study examines the relationships between colorblind racial ideology, social justice factors, namely social justice self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and social justice supports and barriers, and the social justice interest and commitment of practicing urban school counselors.Item VERTICAL COMMUNITIES; FUTURE LIVING FOR BALTIMORE'S INNER CORE(2011) Bilger, Paul Costello; Quiros, Luis D; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)How do we continue to densify our cities while providing a habitable environment for citizens to live and grow? With the increase in global population and the trend to move into cities, the urban core will have to be reinvented to accommodate this influx of people. My strategies for the future of the urban core include: first, vertical communities, which focus on equality and the sharing of resources to increase quality of life. Secondly, hybridization, which is the mixing of program designed to increase daily activity and to localize amenities. Thirdly, climate analysis, used to increase the performance and livability of the building. Lastly, context analysis, meant to place the building within the existing urban fabric without disrupting its continuity. This thesis envisions life in the city that provides a healthy living environment for all of its citizens to live and grow.