Schedule at a Glance Speaker Index Room 1 Room 2 Room 3 Room 4 Room 5 Room 6 Room 7 Room 8 Room 9 Room 10 Room 11 Posters Special Events
The purpose of this research is to prove the feasibility of using a custom designed underwater ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) to aid in derelict crab pot location and recovery efforts. Lost or discarded crab pots, also known as ghost pots, are responsible for damaging marine ecosystems in the Puget Sound, Washington State. Current solutions such as side scan sonars are expensive to implement and often inaccessible to many coastal communities. By demonstrating ghost pot recovery at a depth of 25 meters, this project proposes a low cost alternative to existing methods by pairing technological solutions with citizen science.
Faculty Sponsor: Scott Pike
Discipline: Environmental Science
The purpose of this project is to analyze the social importance of Willamette University’s records and knowledge of the Chemawa Indian School. I analyze Willamette’s archival knowledge alongside academic records through library research and working with those in possession of knowledge of the Chemawa Indian School. I understand archival knowledge through dramaturgy, social dynamics of performance, and epistemology. I expect to understand the relationship between the Chemawa Indian School and Willamette University as well as how archival knowledge can inform the history of both institutions. This will grant a greater understanding of Willamette’s history.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
The purpose of this project is to illuminate some of the challenges that are posed when a small university museum receives a major collection, specifically focusing on the Hallie Ford Museum of Art and the incoming Hoyt Collection. A combination of literature review, interviews with museum staff, and first hand internship experience at HFMA will give a broader understanding to current curatorial practices in museum work, and how the ideal version of curation is constrained by the limits of reality. Results will be revealed and discussed.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
Today’s most visible form of dogsledding is that of the lengthy endurance contest, such as the renowned Iditarod Trail race. The goal of this study is to build upon the work of Sharon F. Kemp by situating these major racing events within their socio-historic context. I will introduce Renato Rosaldo’s theory of “Imperialist Nostalgia” and David G. Anderson’s analyses of human-animal relations in the Arctic. The overall aim is to provide a preliminary report on the role of collaborative nostalgic memory when it comes to competitive dogsledding, and to discern how collective nostalgic efforts reinforce and/or confront the legacies of settler-colonialism.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
The Office of Career Development at Willamette University aims to support the professional growth of all the University’s students. However, intersecting stigmatized identities may shape college students' interactions with career services. Through ethnographic and scholarly research, I aim to uncover how the Office of Career Development can best serve BIPOC students at Willamette University. Interviews with students, staff, and faculty give insight into campus perceptions of Career Development and identify avenues for and ongoing barriers to BIPOC student engagement. Theories of social justice and best practices at similar institutions contribute to the conversation.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
The purpose of this project is to evaluate constructions and perceptions of refugees and to analyze how these influence society’s attitudes and actions. Through conducting fieldwork at Global Partners for Student Success along with interviews and library research, I apply concepts of structure and agency, victimhood, and constructed vulnerability to assess the current state of representations of refugees in mainstream American media. My results aim to detail best practices for working with refugee students, as well as how to reframe the ways we think about refugees to restore their complexity and agency.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
The purpose of this project is to investigate how Willamette can best support its students on their path towards academic success. To answer this question, the best practices in the field of student success will be examined along with an analysis of the known problems faced in the pursuit of student support. Analysis from the literature surrounding these questions will lead to recommendations for Willamette’s approach to aiding student success.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
Binding, or the compression of chest tissue, is undertaken by some trans and gender non-conforming individuals for purposes of gender affirmation, often resulting in emotional comfort but causing some physical discomfort. This research aims to expand upon the sparse published literature by examining the social dimensions which influence trans and gender non-conforming college students’ decision to bind. To accomplish this, I interviewed students who have been recipients of the Gender Resource and Advocacy Center’s Binders for Bearcats program. Through their stories, I hope to illustrate that in varying spaces and circumstances, their degree of agency to bind is bound.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
Despite being considered vital last responders, funeral directors have been overlooked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic both by the public and academics. This project delves into the inner workings of a funeral home in Salem, Oregon and aims to uncover how the funeral directors there are reacting to the pandemic, specifically the resulting change in workload and increased concern relating to personal health and mortality. The results of several months of participant observations will be revealed and discussed.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
Exploring undergraduate peer groups at Willamette, my anthropology thesis asks where such relationships happen and how they support students' successes. Interviewing 9 students in various friendship groups, and conducting a literature review offers the foundation for my inquiry. Using frameworks presented by Oldenburg, Johnson, Yuen, Tierney, and Venegas, I connect scholarly conversations between third spaces, fictive kin, and social capital. Insights presented include: the friendships investigated seem to form in response to social or emotional needs, and in places that lie between work and school. Implications for this project may include ideas to support students without peer groups.
Faculty Sponsor: Rebecca Dobkins
Discipline: Anthropology
On November 17, 2021, Le Petit Robert added a gender neutral pronoun to its online dictionary. This three letter word, iel, has caused major controversy, with a majority of politicians and the ruling body of the French language (L’Académie Française) viciously attacking this “aberration of ‘inclusive writing.’” This project is an analysis of France’s present and historical resistance to linguistic change, the inherent gendering of the French language and how it impacts the experiences of nonbinary and gender non-conforming individuals, and the effect of French as a colonial language on peoples, cultures, and languages which were previously more gender neutural.
Faculty Sponsor: Amadou Fofana
Discipline: French and Francophone Studies
This project is a collection of short stories from my senior thesis that takes place in a liminal coastal town not found on any map. Through encounters with ghosts and other supernatural phenomena these stories seek to explore our attachment to the things we leave behind.
Faculty Sponsor: Michael Chasar
Discipline: English
My project will be a novella in the form of a guidebook for how human society works written by aliens; each chapter will cover a different aspect of human life such as technology, food, family structure, and government. This alien society is extremely military-oriented, almost fascist. These aliens believe that they are the highest form of life in the universe, and therefore they have the right to subjugate other species and their planets. They have discovered earth and intend to colonize it. At this point, they are in the process of gathering military personnel and settlers.
Faculty Sponsor: Micheal Chaser
Discipline: English
This project takes the form of a creative nonfiction novella and finds its roots in interdisciplinary thinking combining philosophy and international relations with a focus on war and peace studies. The author uses her experience with the Sri Lankan civil war and its aftermath to explore how societies reckon with ethnic discrimination and seek accountability and justice, and her experience as a cosmopolitan to present a global perspective. It explores the grounds where theoretical thinking and real experiences intertwine, seeking to present a creative piece that further indulges in philosophical questions regarding the world’s standards, ethics, morality, and authenticity.
Faculty Sponsor: Mike Chasar
Discipline: English