Browsing by Author "Doe, Sue, advisor"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Open Access
An autoethnography of local music culture in northern Colorado
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Schicke, Joseph Andrew, author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Lamanna, Carrie, committee member; Banning, Jim, committee member
The following thesis investigates common ideologies as manifested in the rhetoric of local musicians, musician employers and musician advocates. I use an autoethnographic method in which I use the interview data of local music culture participants along with my own accounts of my experience as a local musician in order to come closer to locating and describing the experience of local music culture. Through constant comparative analysis of interview data, I located six problematic themes related to the rhetorics of the music community, musician recognition, musician identity, music as a leisure activity, musicians as workers, and musicians as part of a wider industry. I put forth the argument that these areas are of great importance in an understanding of the ways that rhetoric and ideology disempower local musicians. In addition, I argue for a more complex awareness of music ideology by introducing affect theory. Finally, I suggest how community literacy may be used in order to advance the ideas brought forth in this thesis.
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An harm we none: memoir of a veterinary medical education
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Ring deRosset, Susan, author; Thompson, Deborah, advisor; Doe, Sue, advisor; Holmquist-Johnson, Helen, committee member
The veterinary profession, we First-Years were told during orientation, is the white-collar demographic with the highest addiction, depression, divorce, and suicide rates in the country. Despite these warnings and all the heavy baggage I was coming in with—as an older student and an ecofeminist Nature gal with limited resources, a spinal disease, and unresolved grief and hauntings—I gave vet school my best shot: It was my Big Dream. Part One of this book-length memoir, my creative nonfiction thesis, covers personal events in 1998, from the January acceptance letter from Colorado State University and the summer before classes started, through fifteen weeks of rigorous academics, with little to no sleep, all the way to our first final exams in December. Like most authors of contemporary veterinary memoirs, including Loretta Gage, Allen Schoen, and Suzy Fincham-Gray, I also share where my passion for animals and the ambition to become a doctor probably originated; the vet-clinic work, volunteer hours, and GPAs we needed to rack up before we even applied; our first euthanasia experiences as well as inspiring scenes with mentor-veterinarians; and how intense vet school interviews and taking out around a hundred-thousand dollars of federal student loans can be. I also begin to explore the complicated relationship between humans and nonhuman animals from inside the veterinary institution.
Open Access
Integrated reading and writing in community colleges: a qualitative study of developmental literacy education
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Church, Martin A., author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Kiefer, Kathleen, committee member; Davies, Timothy, committee member
The following thesis investigates the potential benefits that integrating reading and writing instruction provides to developmental students. In light of several bans on developmental education at four-year institutions across the country, the role community colleges play in providing literacy instruction appears to be increasingly important. This project strives to understand the potential to integrate developmental reading and writing instruction in community colleges by answering the following questions: To what extent are community college administrators aware of the literature on the reading/writing connection? What are the costs and benefits of integrating developmental reading and writing and what do the better curricula consist of? How do issues concerning developmental literacy education change in the context of community colleges when compared to four-year institutions? What administrative, programmatic, and organizational challenges do integrated developmental reading and writing programs create and how can those challenges be addressed? Based on my analysis of interviews conducted with seven developmental program administrators, representing five community colleges within the state, I conclude that organizational factors at these institutions strongly influence notions of literacy education and administrator’s ability to 111 implement programmatic revisions. Further, I argue that administrators’ efforts to implement effective forms of integrated developmental education must include not only a sound pedagogical grounding in reading and writing and a framework to account for specific challenges that arise at their institution, but also a better means for articulating developmental concerns to their college’s central administration, each other, and state officials.
Open Access
Of buildings and belonging: re-storying the student veteran's historical impact on place and program
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Anderson, Sheri McQuiston, author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Amidon, Timothy, committee member; Greene, David, committee member
This research explores the student veteran's material effect upon the land grant university, particularly on the campus of Colorado State University, as seen in the development of both places and programs. The signing of the Morrill Act in 1862, while creating America's land grant universities, also established the connection of the land grant university to military training, a thread which can be traced from CSU's founding in 1870 until today. Using a theory of the rhetorical meaning of physical place, as well as an acknowledgement of the power of collective memory surrounding these spaces, this study restories the narrative of the student veteran's physical impact upon Colorado State University's campus during wartime and post-wartime, from World War I until today. Using rhetorical methodology for archival research, this study explores the physical and programmatic changes upon the CSU campus in order to demonstrate the generative power of the student veteran upon the university, both historically and at present. By analyzing archived texts, the impact of student veterans, through both their agentive force and the government funding their GI Bills contribute to the university budget, is shown to have produced a material impact that has gradually shifted over time. This material impact has shown increasing focus, as developments have evolved from places to programs, from groups to individuals. Re-storying the forgotten narrative of the history of the student veteran upon the land grant university campus suggests the material agency of the student veteran, and provides a frame through which to view their effect on curricular programs/offerings and physical plant improvement.
Open Access
Rhetorics of song: critique, persuasion & education in Woody Guthrie & Martin Hoffman's "Deportees"
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Kannan, Vani, author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Langstraat, Lisa, advisor; Mumme, Stephen, committee member
This thesis investigates the lyrical and musical elements of the song "Deportees," and considers the song's reinterpretation in two contemporary songs. Through autoethnographic writing and rhetorical analysis, I analyze the way all three texts respond to silences in popular media, and in doing so, shed light on the nationalistic ideologies embedded in that silence. I argue that the songs' preservation and circulation of marginalized histories and the performance practices through which they circulate suggest their rich rhetorical and pedagogical potential to inform scholarship in rhetoric and composition. I conclude that transnational feminist analysis and production of song texts and autoethnographic writing can support rhetoric and composition's commitment to social justice by offering guidelines for composing critical texts that respond to silences in the historical record, and allow students and scholars to "write themselves into" transnational events.
Open Access
Romero's rhetoric: blurred audience identity as unifying tactic in war-torn El Salvador
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Gabriel, Darcy, author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Garcia, Antero, committee member; Mumme, Stephen, committee member
In this thesis I examine a homily given by Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador in 1979, "The Church's Mission in a Crisis." In particular, I use critical discourse analysis in three main areas. First, I analyze the intertextuality and genre conventions associated with Archbishop Romero's homily. Second, I examine the ways that Archbishop Romero brought various audience groups into his homily in order to broaden the scope of audiences who could be receptive to his call for social justice. Finally, I examined how the homily interacted with and interrupted power relations. I found that Archbishop Romero followed the tradition of Catholic doctrine from Vatican II and Puebla in making direct connections between scripture and daily life in his homilies. In this way Archbishop Romero was able to incorporate into his homilies the call to action for social justice. "The Church's Mission in a Crisis" upheld the distance between the Church and the poor, but it also pushed back through the inclusion in the homily of results from a diocese survey. Through my examination of the influence of the homily, I used the framework of social movement rhetoric in order to examine the influence that Archbishop Romero had rather than attempt to trace the ideological impact of one homily. In this way, using critical discourse analysis to examine texts within social movements allows for in-depth case studies of texts in a way that encourages situating the case study within the larger social movement.
Open Access
The implications of the "new" majority of non-tenurable faculty for first year composition curricula and critical pedagogy
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Austin, Sarah E., author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Langstraat, Lisa, committee member; Dickinson, Greg, committee member
Of late, much discussion has arisen around university employers' treatment of the "new" majority of contingent faculty. However, little is being said regarding two important points: first, that in the field of rhetoric and composition and in first-year writing classrooms, especially, this majority of contingent faculty is not at all new. Secondly, that some attention should be paid to what effects this writ-large university labor shift may be having on the pedagogical and curricular decisions within composition programs, particularly as they pertain to faculty's academic freedoms and the teaching of critical thinking skills. As such, this thesis sought to attend to both of the above issues by documenting the history of rhetoric and composition's labor force, aligning that history to activism and critical pedagogies and, through a local example, discussing the implications of the "new" majority of untenurable faculty on the pedagogies and curricula utilized in first-year composition. My findings indicate, as suspected, that the majority of contingent faculty is not a new phenomenon to the field of composition. Nevertheless, this contingent majority does impact the ways in which critical thinking and pedagogies may be used within the first-year composition classroom. Results seem to show that such a shift in university faculty profiles will indeed affect professors' abilities to wield traditionally understood ideas of academic freedom but that, drawing on Foucault's notions of power and his term "specific intellectual," individuals within composition departments, and perhaps university-wide, are able, through conscious action to uphold the democratic ideals of a postsecondary education: to create civic-minded, critical thinkers.
Open Access
The role of genre, identity, and rhetorical agency in the military writing of post-9/11 student-veterans
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Hadlock, Erin D., author; Doe, Sue, advisor; Langstraat, Lisa, committee member; Grigg, Neil, committee member
Since the Post-9/11 GI Bill was signed into law in August 2009, hundreds of thousands of student-veterans and more than $3.6 billion have poured into college campuses nationwide. Student-veterans have brought with them incredible life experiences, maturity, and self-discipline, as well as different learning styles and stressors that traditional students typically do not face. Recent qualitative research about this population has primarily been dedicated to their transitions and disabilities, but relatively few researchers have explored student-veterans' academic preparation acquired in those formative years in the military, especially skills in writing. Therefore, in this thesis, two colleagues and I survey and interview nine student-veterans, representing each branch of service, at Colorado State University. I explore their past textual production in the military and use those experiences with writing to shape and inform my discussion about genre use and theory as put forth by Amy Devitt and Anis Bawarshi. Because almost all writing in the military is formed within a specific genre, genres are central to the writing histories of student-veterans. In the military, genres serve not only as formatting guides but also as sites of cultural capital and rhetorical action, and they have a profound effect on how student-veterans construct meaning from writing in first-year composition classrooms. Additionally, I look to Michele Foucault's theories of constituted identities to explain how student-veterans' beliefs about writing are influenced by the communities in which they participate. The societal stratum in the military of officers and enlisted soldiers greatly determines what student-veterans understand as writing and its relationship to class-bound identities. My findings suggest, however, that as active duty soldiers, student-veterans used many of the rhetorical skills taught in a composition classroom but often have difficulty recognizing what they did as writing. Because few composition instructors are familiar with military text production, this thesis provides information about the connections between military and academic writing, identifies ideas about strengthening curricula, and suggests directions for future research.
Open Access
Training at Colorado community corrections centers: understanding and evaluating varied training approaches in the corrections environment
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Dunlap, Makayla, author; Jacobi, Tobi, advisor; Doe, Sue, advisor; Gingerich, Karla, committee member
Most depictions of the justice system suggest an environment that is strictly punitive. However, Community Corrections, as the last step before individuals reenter their community, is uniquely situated to be responsible for building agency in and actively communicating with those who have been incarcerated. This approach requires staff to be trained differently than others in the Corrections ecosystem so that they might interact with clients in a different, more humanitarian way. The current research aims to examine existing training for Community Corrections employees using the lens of Activity Theory (Engestrom, Vygotsky) and Design Justice (Costanza-Chock, Design Justice Network). To conduct this analysis, in an IRB-approved study, 24 participants, all of whom are practitioners of training or maintain some official role in the training ecosystem, were recruited from nine Community Corrections facilities across the state of Colorado and asked about their experiences with Community Corrections training. After the interviews were conducted, a critical content analysis of the qualitative data from the interviews was done, examining how the current training aligns with the six components of Activity Theory and the ten principles of Design Justice. In doing so, Activity Theory illuminates the complex and rapidly changing Community Corrections environment that staff are being trained in, while alignment with Design Justice principles helps measure the relative success of training. This project found that Community Corrections practitioners are aware of and, to some degree, are effective in applying Design Justice principles to their work even as structural challenges impede full effectiveness. However, current Design Justice principles did not fully capture the complexity of the institution. Activity Theory additionally revealed the complexity of Community Corrections organizationally and further amplified the need for structural changes that might influence overall effectiveness. This study shows that, moving forward, both Community Corrections itself and Design Justice principles can grow and improve.