Browsing by Author "Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, committee member"

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Open Access
Evaluation of student engagement assessment in Colorado State University's Warner College of Natural Resources
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Holman, Debra Kaye, author; Timpson, William M., advisor; Vaske, Jerry J., advisor; Makela, Carole, committee member; Newman, Peter, committee member; Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, committee member
The purpose of this mixed methods study was to conduct a participatory program evaluation of student engagement assessment in Colorado State University's (CSU) Warner College of Natural Resources (WCNR). The college requested the evaluation after completing two pilot studies of undergraduate engagement which led them to consider establishing the Milestones Assessment Program of Student Engagement (MAPSE). WCNR leadership sought to determine (a) the mission, goals, and objectives of assessing WCNR student engagement; (b) how the goals and objectives aligned with CSU's and WCNR's strategic plans; (c) the variables, measures, and outcomes of student engagement assessment in natural resources at CSU; (d) how electronic and classroom survey administrations of WCNR undergraduate student engagement compared; and (e) the operational elements required to support MAPSE. The evaluation was to address these five areas, determine whether an electronic or classroom survey format was best suited for administration in the college, and recommend what survey interval ought to be observed. In conducting the evaluation, administrations of electronic and classroom surveys generated assessment data that were analyzed as an extension of the study. It was found that WCNR was well-positioned to go forward with establishing MAPSE. The college had mission, goals, and objectives for assessment of student engagement which aligned with CSU and WCNR strategic plans. The evaluation identified practices, indices, and themes of WCNR student engagement for use in MAPSE surveys, and survey findings provided college leadership baseline data to develop outcomes for undergraduate engagement. Both electronic and classroom survey administrations produced acceptable samples for assessment of WCNR student engagement, with the electronic survey having a more representative sample of students by department and the classroom survey having a more representative sample of students by sex. The electronic survey incurred fewer direct costs of time and human resources. It was recommended that either survey be administered under MAPSE and survey intervals not interfere with other campus-wide survey administrations at CSU. Analyses of the survey data revealed that WCNR students found the college's practices of engagement important and satisfying. As student satisfaction with course opportunities, faculty advising, and development as natural resource professionals increased, their intent to persist and sense of success in the college and their majors increased. Student satisfaction on development as natural resource professionals was the only variable to consistently influence student persistence and sense of success in the college and their majors. Study findings indicated that besides educationally purposeful activities associated with student engagement, professionally purposeful activities influence natural resource student persistence and success.
Open Access
Immigration ethics: creating flourishing, just, and sustainable societies in a world of limits
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Phillips, Addison, author; Cafaro, Philip, advisor; Shockley, Ken, committee member; Shulman, Steven, committee member; Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, committee member
Most political liberals and academics hold that the proper ethical stance on immigration is one of expansive policies or even open borders. It is assumed that it is unjust to limit the movement of humans who are merely attempting to improve their lot in life by seeking to make an honest living in a new country. This thesis argues that a considered ethical view on immigration in our overpopulated and environmentally overexploited world must take the ethical import of limits seriously. In the first chapter, I argue that the right of a nation's citizens to exercise self-determination and pursue the creation of a flourishing society justifies limiting immigration to the degree that is required to secure various societal goods necessary to a flourishing society, such as the maintenance of mutual regard and a robust welfare state. In the second chapter, I argue that present ecological, economic, and social circumstances demand that developed nations exercise that right and limit immigration from the developing world, due to significant and pressing threats to their near and long-term prospects for flourishing. Mass immigration will never solve the issues the developing world currently faces, but it sends the false signal that it will solve these issues and fails to signal to developing nations the cost of their often extremely high fertility rates. Meanwhile, mass immigration burns financial and political capital in the developed world that should be spent on sustainable development aid and family planning services. Finally, I provide a detailed rebuttal of a potential counterargument that the rights of immigrants overrule considerations about limits and flourishing, arguing that the present regime of national parks and protected natural areas provides a precedent for the type of limits I propose.
Open Access
Origins of the animal husbandry ethic
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1998) Hedleston, Jo Ann, author; Rollin, Bernard E., advisor; Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, committee member; Roberts, P. Elaine, committee member
This thesis gives a historical account of the ethical idea of kindness to animals that is part of the animal husbandry ethic as found in British and American culture. It deals in particular with the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson as the "author", along with Adam Smith, of the American agrarian dream, with special emphasis on the influence of the Christian utilitarian ethic of Francis Hutcheson, a leader of the Scottish Enlightenment in mid-eighteenth century, whose idea of the moral sense influenced both of these men. The modern idea of kindness to animals, or refraining from cruelty to animals, as part of good husbandry, comes from the social humanitarian movement in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The idea is transformed from the ethic which states that we ought not be cruel to animals because it might in turn lead to cruel treatment of humans into a new ethic which claims we ought to be kind to animals because they are sensitive creatures with a value of their own beyond that of human use. That transformation of the ethic occurs in part as a result of the rise of natural science which gives us a new conception of the anatomical similarities of animals to humans. The discussion about what animals are is highlighted by Descartes' theory of the beast machine in Europe in general and I look at the controversy in detail in England and France especially as the organized church struggles to integrate the new empirical science and the old religion of Christianity. I make the claim that the humanitarian movement which produced the movement for reform in Britain was fueled by the ethical idea of the moral sense which first came to the public's attention through the popular writings of the Earl of Shaftesbury. These ethical ideas of the moral sense were refined and made palatable to ordinary Christians by the work of Francis Hutcheson and other natural theologians of the eighteenth century and written about extensively in the latter part of that century and the early part of the nineteenth in Britain. I survey some relatively unknown (in current scholarship) propagandistic literature of the animal welfare movement in Britain in order to support the claim that it was through a revival of Old Testament texts regarding the kind treatment of animals that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and others were able to bring about legislative change in England regarding the treatment of domestic animals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I also survey some current theological writings on the subject of Christian duty to animals in order to compare the basic ethical assumptions of both centuries' interpretations of the Biblical texts, and suggest that modern problems in animal welfare might still be addressed by these same Biblically based ethical formulas, enlightened by scientific knowledge about animals.
Open Access
The development and evaluation of an automated multimedia kiosk-based visitor survey system in Iguaçu National Park, Brazil
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Nobre, Ismael, author; Wallace, George N., advisor; Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, committee member; Vaske, Jerry J., 1951-, committee member; Newman, Peter, 1972-, committee member
The Brazilian system of parks and related areas has shown a continued increase in geographic area and in recreational use demands. The federal government recently established policies aimed at improving visitor management and setting standards for public visitation to the nation's protected area (PA) system - a major shift from the era where visitors were seen as burdensome to conservationists. New policies require the collection of visitor information to inform improvements to the visitor experience and other management actions. Brazilian PA managers, however, have a limited data base, limited experience and few resources for undertaking visitor studies. Accordingly, this research developed and evaluated an automated visitor interviewing system to help close this information gap. The system developed and integrated custom-made software and hardware capable of collecting multidimensional survey data, including cognitive data, environmental variables, and the affective state of respondents. The kiosk system utilizes an animated virtual host as part of a machine-human communication strategy aimed at intertwining the survey system with the park experience. The multimedia design reduces the respondent burden and enables the evaluation of current or future physical, social and managerial settings using virtual reality depictions. A variety of features reduces the administrative burden for managers. The development and use of the kiosk are described in detail. The prototype survey station was tested in Iguaçu National Park, Brazil, between January and December of 2008 yielding a sample size of 4,047 respondents. The study evaluated the ability of an unhosted station to collect good visitor information and the time and effort visitors spent answering the questionnaire and interacting with the survey station. It also assessed how environmental variables like weather or river flow, (also measured by the station), affected visitor satisfaction. The study found among other results that the survey station operating in either a hosted or unhosted mode, produced the same results; that 54.8% of respondents were committed to answering to all questions, 26% were partially committed and 19.1% were uncommitted; and verified that environmental variables did affect overall visitor satisfaction.