This thesis discusses the importance and impact of preserving Italian culture, food traditions, and local identity. Reflecting on a year spent in Italy during the 2021-2022 academic school year, the author explores the significance and preservation of Italian culture, food traditions, and local identities. The thesis identifies three compelling rationales for their preservation: the health benefits derived from traditional practices, the positive environmental implications of maintaining biodiversity and sustainable methods, and the societal advantages of connected communities fostering a sense of belonging and purpose. Then, this thesis will examine how the nonprofit organization Slow Food, renowned for its commitment to preserving culinary heritage, raises awareness about the imperative need for preservation and education. The organization's core principles and ongoing initiatives serve as a model for championing these essential causes. Using academic analyses of the intersection between food and culture, this thesis establishes a comprehensive analysis of their connection and the significance of their preservation. This thesis draws on diverse sources, including the author's personal experiences during their study-abroad program in Italy. Through these lenses, the paper underscores the critical importance of upholding Italian culture and food traditions amidst evolving global food systems.

This thesis focuses on ethics and explains some of its features, specifically the concept of moral consideration, rights, and interests, through three leading ethical theories in the field, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and duty ethics. In this framework, environmental ethics is explored through three popular theories in the community, anthropocentrism, non-anthropocentrism, and holism. Furthermore, organisational ethics is discussed in the context of environmental ethics through a case study of America’s famous coffee giant Starbucks. The coffee company is used to discuss business ethics and explores some of the practices already implemented, what works, what does not, what can be done, and the critical role its members play. Moreover, the thesis argues that environmental ethics is necessary to address and mitigate sustainability challenges and create models of business that consider the natural world in its entirety.

This thesis aims to interpret, analyze, and bring forward the connections between psychological disorders and serial murder. As part of that, the essay will be emphasizing specific diagnoses such as antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and delusional disorder while profiling serial killers throughout history known to suffer from these mental illnesses. Using the accounts and known diagnoses of serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and others, this thesis will further reflect the psychological history and evolution of these mental health disorders. To do that, this thesis will also show the romanticization of serial killers in popular culture. Utilizing the scholarly research made available in the psychological and criminal justice literature, this thesis will further the conclusion that psychological disorders are the root of serial murder and explore the possibility that continued advances in the study of psychological disorders are the primary cause of serial murder and that criminal profiling may have the potential to reduce the incidents of murder that we do see in serial killer tendencies. We are further exploring the possibility that continued advances in the study of psychological disorders and criminal profiling can reduce the incidents we do see.

This paper will discuss what psychological operations (PSYOP) and psychological warfare (PSYWAR) are, emphasizing the role they played in the Korean War on soldiers and POWs. It includes two dynamic, engaging personal narratives adding relevance and intrigue to the topic examined. Two types of psychological operations will be identified and discussed, the leaflet and radio broadcast. Three methods of psychological warfare in the form of bacteriological warfare allegations, brainwashing, and sleep deprivation are analyzed and the effects of these methods during wartime. All participating countries during the Korean war either used psychological operations and warfare on their enemies, or had it used on them. The key takeaway was increased understanding that PSYOP and PSYWAR are founded on truthfulness rather than falsehoods. The paper concludes with the results of the war on the players involved and the legacy of psychological operations, encompassing how it applies to our technologically advanced world today.

The Cambodian-Vietnamese War, beginning in the late 1970s, was largely influenced by differing political ideologies among people and organizations in both Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as the United States and China. The war over communism, socialism, and democracy helped give rise to groups such as the Communist Party of Kampuchea or Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In 1977 and 1978, the Khmer Rouge attacked Vietnam, killing thousands of people in the process. In the aftermath of the war, various social implications occurred in Cambodia and Vietnam. Many who lived through the war, whether soldiers or civilians, were left traumatized and suffered from PTSD. Fighting resulted in large refugee communities and conscription by the respective states meant that most people in these countries were directly touched by war. Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia and the strained relationships in the region caused lasting consequences. These societal implications can still be seen today, and the Cambodian-Vietnamese War can be a reminder of the devastating consequences of war and political conflict.

Over the past few decades online learning has continually evolved to become a popular pathway to higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic produced an unprecedented shift toward online learning through Emergency Remote Teaching. Recent literature has increasingly represented online learning environments through the negative experiences of students and instructors as they navigate such a difficult transition. However, comparatively little attention has been given to the experiences of instructors in established online programs. This article presents idiographic findings from a qualitative study that used interpretative phenomenological analysis of interviews with five college-level online instructors. These findings describe the emphasis online instructors place on maximizing student engagement, facilitating the student’s translation of learning to their own lives, belief in online learning as an equal-but-different pathway to higher education, sense of purpose from providing accessible education to a diverse student body, and the unique challenges faced in course preparation and student connection.

For African countries during the 1960s and 70s, decolonization marked the first step in a slow crawl toward complete independence. For Western powers and the Soviet Union, however, decolonization presented an opportunity to exert new influence over countries in desperate need of aid, investment, experts, and trade. Amidst the backdrop of increasing Cold War tensions, the US and USSR used foreign aid to pressure development according to either capitalist or Marxist agendas. Thus, sub-Saharan Africa became a battleground of proxy wars and neocolonialism. The Cold War superpowers would back opposing regimes in Angola and prop up, oust, or assassinate leaders in Ghana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. This disrupted natural political development and created instability and violence, which was compounded by the arrival of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s. AIDS ravaged African societies and destroyed the remaining fibers of leadership. The disease illuminated harsh historical realities as it spread among the conflict-stricken countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the motivations behind US and USSR foreign aid during the Cold War, understand how their involvement halted the natural progression of pan-Africanism and leadership in newly-independent African countries, and link the resulting violence to the devastation of the AIDS crisis twenty years later. It begins with a look at European colonization in sub-Saharan Africa and traces the legacy of western influence in the region. The paper will then analyze specific examples of the consequences of historical interference, such as in the Angolan Civil War, the Congo Crisis, and the Rwandan genocide. It will introduce the AIDS crisis—coincident with major civil conflict and the end of the Cold War—and reveal the foreign aid response of the international community in the late 1990s and early 2000s, once Cold War-era pressures were gone. Through realizing the continued impact and spread of HIV/AIDS, the objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive view of the modern-day consequences of historical interference.