I Lived is a story about an anxious teen girl afraid of new experiences who moves into a house with a ghost who thinks life should be lived to the fullest. This is a project I have wanted to work on for years and finally got to complete thanks to Barrett, The Honors College and my wonderful Director and Committee members.

The Internet is poised to open access to higher education for students no matter where they live. However, many students still live in places where barriers keep them from getting and staying connected to online coursework. These barriers include power outages, high internet data costs, and lack of computers or smartphones. BYU-Pathway Worldwide’s PathwayConnect prepares students living around the world to matriculate into online certificate and degree programs. When students drop out PathwayConnect, many cite these technical barriers. However, other PathwayConnect students have employed a series of know-hows, or strategies to stay connected to the online coursework. The aims of this action research dissertation were to discover these specific know-hows, design a way for PathwayConnect students to read and discuss them in the Canvas course shell, and measure the impact of sharing the know-hows. While quantitative data analysis showed no change in student persistence between the treatment and control groups, students in the treatment group reported high engagement with the know-hows. Moreover, qualitative data analysis revealed extensive use and adaptation of the know-hows among the treatment group.

This quasi-experimental, concurrent, mixed method, action research study sought to evaluate how an elective 1-credit course informed by mindfulness and culturally sustaining pedagogy influenced honors students’ academic self-efficacy, self-compassion, and their meaning-making about what it means to be an honors student. Theoretical perspectives and research guiding the study included: academic self-efficacy, culturally sustaining pedagogy, mindfulness, and third space. Drawing from these perspectives, the 9-week Creative Compassion course utilized poetry and rap as a way to enact culturally sustaining pedagogy and also as a vehicle for students to practice mindfulness. Findings from quantitative data from pre- and post- surveys of a treatment and control population, as well as qualitative data (open-ended survey questions, focus groups, and student artifacts) from the treatment population are presented here. This study revealed the following: practices informed by culturally sustaining pedagogy positively impacted students’ mindfulness, these same practices allowed for the creation of a third space within the classroom, and improving student self-compassion should be an increased priority. Additional implications for research and practice are also presented.

College and university students are heavily influenced by their exposure to opportunities, individuals, and belief-systems during their time in school. More specifically, countless students are impacted by campus Christian ministries. There are 67 registered religious clubs and organizations across Arizona State University's four campuses, and 46 of them identify as Christian. Similar to most faith-based organizations, Christian campus ministries seek to impact the lives of students. This study will take a look at the influence of these ministries at ASU by researching their intersection with another key component of university life: wellness.
The primary research question is, “How does involvement in Christian ministries at ASU relate to the wellness of students?” The study will examine multiple dimensions of wellness: occupational, physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional. Each component is essential to understanding the health and well-being of an individual, which is why this study will measure wellness levels in each dimension among samples of students at ASU.
The methodology chosen was a short, anonymous survey that 148 ASU students participated in—73 involved in Christian ministries at ASU and 75 not involved. The quantitative component included a wellness assessment using questions from The National Wellness Institute. These wellness scale questions were broken up into 5 randomized sections, each with one question per dimension, for 30 questions total. Each question response was assigned a rating on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 associated with low wellness and 5 high wellness. The qualitative component, comprised of short answer questions, only applied to students who were involved in a Christian ministry. This portion allowed respondents to explain if and how the ministry impacts each dimension of wellness uniquely.
The quantitative results showed some evident differences between students involved in Christian ministries and students not involved. The social and spiritual dimensions concluded much higher levels of wellness for involved students, both statistically significant with p-values of 0.028 and 0.004. Although some of the wellness differences between involved and not involved participants were not statistically significant, there is also notable variation among questions within each dimension. For the qualitative data, most students in Christian ministries said they believe their involvement increases their wellness in all six dimensions. For each dimension, over 75% of participants said that the ministry impacted their well-being. For the social, spiritual, and emotional dimensions, at least 97% of respondents said their ministry involvement impacted their wellness.
In examining the conclusions of the study, one recommendations is to strengthen the partnership between the greater ASU community and Christian ministries by collaborating and combining resources for programming that relates to their common goals and shared values. Additionally, other faith-based organizations at ASU may benefit from replicating this study to observe their unique wellness impact.

Cultural perpetuation is the ongoing process of celebrating a culture, which allows for continual life to be blown into the culture. This paper explores the reasoning behind the facilitation of a luʻau, which is one way to perpetuate Polynesian culture. This work finds significance particularly on the ASU Tempe campus because of the lack of such an event. There is a heavy focus on the Hawaiian context, which provides motivation for cultural perpetuation. Findings in working with the Hawaiʻi Pacific Islander Club at ASU then support the practicality of a luʻau and its future implications.

ABSTRACT

Historically, first-generation college students (FGCS), students whose parents have not attended college nor earned a degree, are more likely to have lower college retention rates and are less likely to complete their academic programs in a timely manner. Despite this, there are many FGCS who do succeed and it is imperative to learn what fuels their success. The theoretical perspectives that framed this study included: hidden curricula, resiliency theory and community cultural wealth. Drawing from these perspectives, this qualitative research study consisted of a 10-week photo-elicitation facilitation and reflection group in which participants identified aspects of the hidden curricula encountered in the university that were challenging in their educational journeys and guided them in identifying the sources of strength (i.e. protective factors) that they channeled to overcome those challenges. The participants for this study were selected using a stratified purposeful sampling approach. The participants identified as Latina, low-income FGCS who were on good academic standing and majored in two of the largest academic units at Arizona State University's Tempe campus- the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Fulton College of Engineering. This study used participants’ testimonios (critical, reflexive narratives), photo-elicitation images, student journal responses, focus group dialogue and Facebook group posts to better understand the resiliency of Latina, low-income FGCS at ASU. Using grounded theory analysis, this study revealed the following,

Latina, low-income FGCS:

- Primarily define and develop their academic resiliency outside of the classroom and use social capital connections with peers and aspirational capital connections to their future to be successful inside the classroom.

- Are heavily driven to succeed in the university setting because of their family's support and because they view their presence in college as a unique opportunity that they are grateful for.

- Operationalize their academic resiliency through a combination of hard work and sacrifice, as well as an active implementation of resilience tactics.

- Are motivated to pass on their resiliency capital to other students like them and perceive their pursuit of a college education as a transformative action for themselves, their families and their communities.