Browsing by Subject "Texas A&M University"
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Item Authenticated writing assessments of agricultural education graduate students(Texas A&M University, 2004-11-15) Wright, Kimberly DawnLindner, Murphy, and Wingenbach (2002), noted that agricultural education's core is communication because it is the component that spreads a variety of ideas to a large group of people and is the essential form of education needed for scholarship. Research is needed to ensure that agricultural education students are taught to write, effectively and efficiently, an argument paper that establishes the following components: coherence, audience awareness, argument, summary, sources, and grammar. The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine if the writing competencies of the Doc@Distance graduate students have changed or improved based on the recommendations made in a previous study. A census of the Doc@Distance students was taken for this study. Thirty students submitted an argument writing sample that they wrote during the orientation week of their program in August 2003. The conclusions of this study found that 68.8% of the 2004 Doc@Distance Cohort suggested inadequacy in writing an argument paper, and 71.4% of the 2007 Doc@Distance Cohort suggested inadequacy in writing an argument paper. Ending Cohort `04 demonstrated weakness in coherence, argument, summary, and grammar. Beginning Cohort `07 demonstrated weakness in coherence, audience awareness, summary, and grammar. As a result of this study, it is recommended that a follow-up study be conducted on Cohort `07 in two years to determine if writing abilities for argument papers have changed and to assess the overall changes in argument-writing for this cohort. It is recommended that a study be conducted on Cohort `10 upon admission to determine their argument-writing ability. Ending Cohort `07 and Beginning Cohort `10 should be tested to determine if a difference exists between students completing the program and students entering the program. It is recommended that undergraduate agricultural education students be tested to determine their argument-writing competencies. It is recommended to compare and contrast on-campus agricultural education students and distance education students at Texas A&M University. Finally, it is recommended that Cohorts `07 and `10 be evaluated on their competencies to write data reports, narratives, and informative and research analysis papeers.Item February 2018 Forum(Texas Digital Library, 2018-02-21) Park, Kristi; Mumma, Courtney; DeForest, LeaPresentation for the Februrary 2018 Texas Digital Library (TDL) Forum. This TDL Forum featured Kristi Park providing an update on TDL staffing, and service upgrades to Vireo 4 and DSpace 6. Courtney Mumma discussed the recent digital preservation work including Texas A&M University Libraries' content ingest into the Digital Preservation Network (DPN). Courtney also reminded participants to apply for registration to the Digital Preservation Management Workshop. Lea DeForest discussed TDL's monthly Twitter chat, titled #MetadataMixer and reminded members of upcoming deadlines for TCDL as well as TDL award nominations.Item From the inside looking in: Tradition and diversity at Texas A&M University(2009-05-15) Caulfield, Emily LynnThis study explores how the unique history, culture, and traditions of Texas A&M University shape students? perceptions and understandings of diversity and diversity programs. I examine these issues through participant observation of Texas A&M?s football traditions and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with members of the student body. In response to increased media scrutiny, public pressure, and scholastic competition, the current administration has embraced a number of aggressive initiatives to increase diversity among members of the student body. The collision between decades of tradition and the administration?s vision for the future has given rise to tension between members of the student body and the administration, which I argue is due, at least in part, to the culture that began developing at Texas A&M during the middle of the twentieth century as students began reacting to the prospect of change. I conclude that this historical and cultural context continues to impact modern campus life through students? dedication to tradition. In addition, I suggest that current students tend to assign different meanings and values to the concepts of both tradition and diversity than either faculty members or administrators do, creating tensions that have not been comprehensively examined or understood within the context of the Texas A&M community. Based on these findings, I suggest that proponents of diversity can improve the diversity project at Texas A&M University by giving students more responsibility for diversity programs, emphasizing the process (rather than the results) of diversification, attempting to eradicate all forms of intolerance and injustice on campus, and insisting on a policy of mutual respect.Item Queer Utopian Performance at Texas A&M University(2012-07-16) Sayre, DanaThrough a combination of personal interviews and participant-observation in three field sites ? the Tim Miller workshop and performance of October 2010 and the student organizations Cepheid Variable and the GLBT Aggies ? I argue that manifestations of utopian desire and performance circulate within and among marginalized groups on the Texas A&M University campus, undermining the heteronormative and monolithic utopia the university attempts to present. I participated in each night of rehearsal during the Tim Miller workshop, as well as the creation and performance of my own solo autobiographical monologue as a part of the ensemble. My participant-observation in Cepheid Variable and the GLBT Aggies was concurrent, consisting of attendance at both weekly organizational meetings and outside events sponsored by the organizations over two years. I argue that the Tim Miller workshop and performance is best understood by examining the intersection of queer intimacy, utopia, and performance. I argue that processes of connection, sharing, and mutual transformation allowed it to function as an example of queer utopian performance qua performance at Texas A&M. I explore the links between the ?nerd,? ?queer,? and ?family? identities of Cepheid Variable, arguing that the intersection of these identity-markers and the performance practices which reinforce them enable Cepheid Variable to create a utopian space on the Texas A&M campus for those students who do not fit traditional notions of Aggie identity. I explore two Cepheid performance practices: noise-making and storytelling, arguing that they construct, support, and interweave each element of Cepheid identity, allowing the organization to perpetuate and reaffirm its utopian and counterpublic statuses at Texas A&M. I explore what the GLBT Aggies claims to provide in theory, juxtaposed with what it actually accomplishes in practice. I examine a moment of crisis the LGBTQ community at Texas A&M faced in spring 2011. I argue that the utopia the GLBTA promises remains unfulfilled because the marginalization of the LGBTQ community at large leaves diversity within that community unaddressed. I conclude that utopian communities persist if able to adapt, and that the strength of the intimacy built into queer utopias in particular sustains them through time.Item Rural Drag: Settler Colonialism and the Queer Rhetorics of Rurality(2013-07-16) Nichols, Garrett WedekindIn the United States, rural culture is frequently thought of as traditional and ?authentically? American. This belief stems from settler colonial histories in which Native lands are stolen and ?settled? by white colonial communities. Through this process, the rugged ?frontier? becomes a symbol of American identity, and rural communities become the home of ?real? Americans. Because settler colonization is invested in maintaining systems of white supremacy, sexism, and heteropatriarchy, these ?real? Americans are figured as normatively white and straight. This dissertation analyzes the rhetorical construction of rurality in the United States, specifically focusing on the ways in which settler colonial histories shape national discussions of rural sexuality. I theorize a rhetorical practice I call rural drag, a process by which individuals in settler society can assert membership in white heteropatriarchy by performing ?rurality.? I trace the development of this rhetorical practice through three case studies. In the first, I analyze 19th-century Texan legislative writings during the creation of Texas A&M University. These writings and related correspondences reveal a baseline of white supremacist and settler colonial rhetorics upon which the university established its ethos. In the second, I look at how these rhetorics continue to inform performances of sexuality and gender at Texas A&M. These performances derive from earlier rhetorical practices designed to create a space for white settler privilege. Together, these two case studies suggest that rhetorical practices shape and are shaped by the spaces in which they are practiced and the rhetorical histories of these spaces. In my final case study, I interrogate national discourses of rurality through an analysis of country western music to show how rhetorics of rurality are simultaneously local and national. I conclude by challenging scholars of rhetoric and queer studies to recognize that the relationship between rhetoric and place is key to recognizing our relationship to privilege and oppression in the United States. To further this, I propose a decolonial queerscape pedagogy that accounts for the multiple overlays of sexual identities and practices that travel through the academy while challenging the colonial histories and actions upon which the academy is built.Item The impact of a leadership development learning community on the leadership development of freshmen in transition at Texas A&M University: a comparative analysis of year one and year two(2009-05-15) Arnold, Felix Wallace, IIIThe purpose of this research is to see if the peer mentors make a difference in the leadership development of students, their feelings about peer mentors, the Leadership Living Learning Community, and their acclimation to Texas A&M University. Leadership is defined as an interaction between members of a group in which individuals, in the name of the group, act as agents of change, persons whose acts affect other people more than other peoples? actions affect them. The five leadership skills studied were working in groups, positional leadership, communication, decision-making, and understanding self. A post-then methodology was utilized with self-reporting as the process by which data was collected following completion of an academic leadership learning community. The findings from years one and two participants were computed individually and then compared to see if the addition of peer mentors during the second year yielded any significant findings. The major findings for this study were as follows: Year one participants in the learning community indicated improved leadership skills after participation in the learning community for the first semester, as measured by the Leadership Skills Inventory. In addition, year two participants in the learning community indicated a similar increase of leadership skills after the first semester. Year one participants indicated a more statistically significant increase when compared to year two on their leadership skills on the individual questions, while year two participants were found to have more statistically significant findings relating to the five leadership skills or Leadership Skills Inventory scales. Responses by year two participants indicated that the peer mentors who helped them were supportive, gave positive feedback, were good role models, were knowledgeable about Texas A&M University, were easy to communicate with, and did not use peer pressure to persuade them to do anything negative.