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Abstracts

Author Department Professor ↑ Title Year
Amanda Grazioli Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander and Anita Rich Moving Forward by Playing Back: Using Drama to Unpack the Experience of Joblessness
This presentation and interactive demonstration will share the work done in fall 2011 in partnership with Ypsilanti's Michigan Works! office. The presenter devised and facilitated a workshop that sought to provide participants with an opportunity to reflect on experiences relating to job loss and joblessness, while building their confidence and soft skills. Using a blend of interactive theatre and creative drama exercises, the workshop focused on the questions of 'who am I?' 'where have I been?' and 'what do I have to offer?' The presenter will discuss both the experience of creating and leading the workshop and the evaluation methods developed to measure the difficult to quantify impact and results of this endeavor.
2012
Callie S. McKee Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Stories, Grandmothers, and Giant Turtles: Using Personal Stories to Frame the Performance of Folktale
We define our existence by telling stories. Storytelling can help us not only make sense of our own lives but also discover connections to the larger narratives of human history. How then do we approach the stories from other times, other cultures? How can these stories help us imagine a world where all of our narratives are connected in some way? In this presentation, I will discuss the process of interpreting, staging and performing a Native American Folktale: the creation story of Sky Woman and Grandmother Turtle. I will discuss how framing this story in the personal stories of the females in my own family helped me to make meaning of both the original tale and the narrative of my family her-story.
2012
Victoria A. Tomalia Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Improving Communication Skills For Medical School Students Through Improvisational Theater Exercises
While medical school training arms students with a wide array of technical skills, a physician also needs the ability to communicate clearly with and understand the viewpoint of the patient. Previous research has demonstrated that role-playing techniques can serve as effective tools for teaching these skills, but the methods have varying degrees of success. I have designed a series of lessons based on improvisational theater exercises, tailored to meet the specific needs of aspiring physicians. This paper focuses on three key areas: nonverbal communication, an understanding of status, and the impact of risk and trust on the patient/physician relationship. Implementing this program will help to develop physicians with stronger communication skills, leading to better patient compliance and ultimately improving health outcomes.
2012
Diviin J. Huff Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Fear Behind Moonlit Steps
This is a prose piece written for a storytelling class. The story is shaved from Chapter Fourteen of the book "Trouble Don't Last" by Shelley Pearsall. I decided to cut the description of the terribly scarred riverman to focus on the most important thing, which was overcoming for the boy. The man's face was described briefly later and there was a short reference to the man's slave master, too; that description proved to be enough. The piece was shaved down to a moment where the boy recalls a made-up memory of his mother, like a dream state. The idea that he now must walk to seem free frightens the boy to no end, but he must not let fear paralyze him. The performance of walking is one that will either set him aside as free or hold him back to possible re-enslavement. He is deciding to let freedom become him.
2010
Kenton Jones Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Who is Speaking in Neil Gaiman's "Danse Macabre"?
Choosing a narrative voice is vital in the oral performance of fiction. Otherwise, a story is simply being read aloud. An omniscient narrator, being emotionally uninvolved in the story, literally has no character and is thus not very interesting. Dickens' speaker in "David Copperfield" readily reveals himself in the title of the first chapter, "I am Born." Other books are less clear, the plot and action moving the proceedings forward with the assumption that the narrator is the person telling the story. In Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book," an omniscient, unidentified narrator describes past events. In this presentation I will share through performance how and why I chose to place the story in the present with the young boy narrating. The challenge in this oral interpretation is in justifying the use of third person narration when the third person is the first person. As a performer, I place myself in the Now of the story, telling it to an audience as if I were remembering events while they are unfolding. Ultimately, these choices challenge the time/space continuum, requiring total commitment from the storyteller.
2010
Emily D. Patton Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Brace: Creating and Performing a Personal Myth
Personal mythmaking is the art of creating an autobiographical tale focusing on universal truths. The process begins with a personal anecdote in which the author looks for interconnections, significant themes, and metaphors. A personal myth is written for oral performance and focuses on rhythm, pace, and language patterns within delivery. There is less focus on literal truth, as fabricated plot may be necessary to piece a memory together and, ultimately, connect with audiences. Personal myths can be a weaving of stories within one theme, often under the frame of separation, initiation, and return.
2010
Kenton Jones Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Involuntary Memory: The Rest of the Story
This presentation continues research in exploring, devising, and performing personal narratives in a course taught by Jessica Alexander. Drawing on dramatic theories of Sartre and Boal and literary ideas of great writers, I develop techniques for remembering and sharing unique, individual stories with universal appeal. I hope that this may lead to a syllabus for a workshop next fall that would help shape my MFA project, developing an original script with EMU undergraduates. This presentation will focus on my final performance project for Narrating the Self. I will explore the concept of involuntary memory, which holds that every moment of experience necessarily contains memories of other moments. By examining, crafting, and sharing these moments, we explore our past and reveal layers of ourselves. This is the work I hope to continue with young people.
2011
Kristala Pouncy Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Inside a Memory
How can one use memory, pages in a journal, to address grandiose ideas of being a cultural outsider? How can one memory be the strand that connects seemingly disparate ideas of exclusion, transience, and a striving of and for acceptance? In this autoethnographic performance piece, the concept of being an outsider is presented through a myriad of life memory. In order to feel less of an outsider, what does one need to let in? Last, as this autoethnographic performance will demonstrate, the constructing of such performance can reshape the meaning and emotion of the actual memory.
2011
Aleesa R. Searcy Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Witness: Home
At events such as The Alzheimer's Association's Memory Walk, there are few if any survivors to testify to what Alzheimer's awareness and research has done for them. They do not walk for themselves. In autoethnographic performance, one is asked to bear witness, to give voice to others and groups who have no voice. Depending on the stage and severity of the memory loss, patients with Alzheimer's and dementia cannot speak about their pasts because they do not remember them. Their memories are in the hands of those who watched them live. Can ethnographic and autoethnographic performance give voice to those whose memories have dissolved and who live only in the present? In this narrating self-performance, I work to give voice to memory loss patients through the lens of my great-aunt, a tiny, loud, self-proclaimed 'fox' who lived boldly on a tiny island and found herself years later in another island: a gated assisted-living facility.
2011
Laura Tanner Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Cry, Baby, Cry: Giving Voice to Victims of Sibling Abuse
Cry, Baby, Cry' is an original performance that reveals a little-known form of domestic violence: sibling abuse. This type of violence is very common in modern households but is not often reported because it is mistaken for healthy sibling rivalry. The performance addresses gender, identity, and social stigmas attached to family violence. When sibling rivalry becomes abusive, the victim's emotional well-being is damaged significantly. As a result of this, the victim may experience dysfunction in his or her adult relationships. Through movement, music, and language, the presenter recounts her experience as a victim: how she coped and became a survivor. The purpose of this solo piece is to raise awareness for parents and give voice to those who have been victimized. The presenter wrote this piece as an exploration in narrating the self.
2011
Victoria A. Tomalia Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jessica Alexander Improving Communication Skills For Medical School Students Through Improvisational Theatre Exercises
While medical school training arms students with a wide array of technical skills, a physician also needs the ability to communicate clearly with and understand the viewpoint of the patient. Previous research has demonstrated that role-playing techniques can serve as effective tools for teaching these less tangible skills, but the methods have varying degrees of success based on the level of student engagement, a student's role-playing capabilities, and the perceived value of the work. In order to address this weakness, I have designed a series of lessons based on improvisational theatre exercises, tailored to meet the specific needs of aspiring physicians. This paper focuses on three key areas: nonverbal communication, an understanding of status, and the impact of risk and trust on the patient/physician relationship. Implementing this program will help to develop physicians with stronger communication skills, leading to better patient compliance and ultimately improving health outcomes.
2011
Courtney Wright Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Ray Quiel EAC: Extemporaneous Speaking Across the Curriculum
Extemporaneous Speaking, a type of limited preparation speaking commonly found in forensics, has long provided the foundations for sound communication and education pedagogy. This presentation uses constitutive and social justice education theories to provide an understanding of the history and utility of Extemporaneous Speaking as pedagogy. Ultimately, based on the theoretical, historical, and applicable foundations, I proffer Extemporaneous Speaking Across the Curriculum.
2012
Lisa A. Storc Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Ray Quiel Elmo's Rhetoric
In 2002, Elmo Monster, best known from Sesame Street, appeared before the United States Congress as an advocate for music education. This presentation is a forum to examine Elmo's rhetorical use before Congress. Puppets will be present.
2011
Virginia C. Zimmerman Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jeannette Kindred Explaining and Measuring Communication, Job, and Feedback Satisfaction in a Team Environment within a Sports Organization
There are many factors that go into a traditional organizational audit when using the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire. However, when analyzing highly competitive environments, some factors are more important than others. I argue that feedback is the most important and explain this in relation to job and communication satisfaction in a competitive environment such as a collegiate sports setting. In this study, participants from the EMU's Varsity Rowing Team were administered two different questionnaires: one a pared-down version of the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire and the other an extension of the first based on responses given. Interviews followed, providing validation for the results of the questionnaires. Analysis of data revealed that in this highly competitive environment, feedback satisfaction is a highly valued and important factor in conjunction with job and communication satisfaction.
2012
Brian A. Golden Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jeannette Kindred Leader Member Exchange and Deception: Building a Bridge to Nowhere
Leadership in corporate America has been experiencing a transformation over the last two decades as traditional leadership methods have progressed into inclusive, high-quality exchange supervisor/subordinate relationships, with the goal of increasing productivity and lowering employee turnover. Trust between supervisors and subordinates is a key component in the successful operation of an organization. The purpose of this study was to investigate and focus on the high exchange or in-group member dynamic of Leader Member Exchange (LMX) literature and deception literature in hopes of gaining a greater understanding of the effects supervisor deception has on subordinates involved in high-exchange subordinate relationships. Furthermore this study examined low-quality exchange (out-group members), LMX as transactional and transformational leadership, and perceptions of organizational justice due to supervisor deception.
2010
Brian A. Golden Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Jeannette Kindred Male College Students: Gender, Career Choices, and Student Retention
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has classified 62 current United States professions as fastest growing or fastest declining jobs for the years 2008_2018. The goal of this study was to determine whether gender-based stereotypes exist within certain job classifications and whether male students are choosing professions based on gendered societal expectations and norms. Moreover, this study examined whether gender-based stereotypes influence college students' curriculum choices, and whether perceived gender bias within growing professions correlates with student retention rates. A final goal of this study, achieved by analyzing current university communication messages being sent to male college students, is to determine whether gender-based career bias exists and whether the communication messages male college students are receiving influence their career and curriculum choices.
2011
Abdulla Ali Economics David Crary Impact of Economic Variables on Monthly Tourist Arrivals to the Maldives from Selected Source Countries
The Maldives depends heavily on the income generated from tourism; therefore, it is crucial for the government and tourism industry as a whole to understand the uncertainty in monthly tourist arrivals due to changes in the economic outlook of the source countries, especially the major ones. The aim of this presentation is to understand the impact of major economic variables on monthly tourist arrivals from five major source countries to the Maldives: the UK, Italy, Germany, France, and Japan. Monthly tourist arrival data for the selected countries have been used along with some macroeconomic variables to estimate their impact on tourist arrivals. The result indicates that some economic variables have significant impact on tourist arrivals, and tourist arrival is highly seasonal from these countries.
2012
Michael J. Barna Economics David Crary The Predicted Costs of Meeting Performance Standards in Wisconsin: A District-Level Analysis
One large criticism of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has focused on the additional costs of implementing the law and meeting accountability standards. For the state of Wisconsin, prior studies show that a relatively modest increase of funds would be needed to bring student proficiencies to an adequate level. However, these studies were performed prior to the passage of NCLB and its stricter requirements. This study aims to use data on Wisconsin districts between the 2002-03 and 2007-08 school years in order to calculate the additional costs to bring students to the required proficiency levels. However, because the estimated results could not show significant and positive relationships between per-pupil spending and student outcomes, the costs could not be calculated. Several factors may help to explain this unexpected result, and further research is needed.
2012
Lance Vought Economics David Crary Applicant Characteristics as Predictors of Individual Enrollment at Eastern Michigan University
Numerous studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals on factors affecting college choice. However, most of these are based solely on descriptive statistics or anecdotal evidence. This model takes a specific college, EMU, and determines prospective students' likelihood of attending based on data acquired from their applications. Using probit models, I have determined that distance, African American ethnicity, and high school GPA have a negative impact on enrollment at EMU; Michigan or Ohio residency, need-based financial aid, scholarship aid, and education as an intended major have a positive effect. ACT scores, gender, non-education major intent, international student status, and Hispanic ethnicity had no statistically significant effect on individual enrollment.
2012
Dan Colligan Economics David Crary The Effects of Teacher Motivation on School Performance
The success of American schools has been under more intense scrutiny as secondary graduation rates have flattened over the past ten years. Despite more students enrolling in post-secondary programs over the past thirty years, the graduation rates have remained the same. In an attempt to remedy the slumping American education system, researchers have focused attention on the characteristics of schools and teachers that lead to the best outcomes. In the education world, 'best practices' dominate the landscape of professional development. This study looks at the composition of teachers in the school community to see if the percentage of teachers who have attained a graduate degree has a positive effect on the performance of the school district. In this study, there is no conclusive evidence that increasing the percentage of teachers with master's degrees would raise the achievement status of the school district.
2011

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