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Board Demographics, Governance, Independence or Embeddedness: What is more important for reducing Top Management Team’s gender based pay gap in organizations?

Board Demographics, Governance, Independence or Embeddedness: What is more important for reducing Top Management Team’s gender based pay gap in organizations?

Primary author: Gurdeep Singh Raina
Faculty sponsor: Dr. Arvin Sahaym

Primary college/unit: Carson College of Business
Campus: Pullman

Abstract:

This study advances the research on the relationship between Upper Echelon demographics and the gender based pay gap in the TMT. Specifically, I investigated the relationships between Board demographics, Top Management Team (TMT) demographics and the gender diversity in the Compensation Committees, and gender based pay gap in the TMT. I also assessed the influence of gender diversity in the TMT on these relationships. I used Agency, Social Identity theory, and Demographic similarity to conceptually establish the main relationships as well as the moderated relationships. The study indicated that there seems to be a significant relationship between Board Size, Board Independence, and Independent Director Tenure on the focal board, with all the three variables negatively impacting the gender based pay gap in the TMT at various levels of significance. It also concluded that the gender diversity in the TMT significantly moderates the main relationships. Additionally, the results show that gender and national diversity in the focal board, TMT size, and gender diversity in the Compensation Committee do not impact the gender based TMT pay gap significantly. The moderation is also non-significant in these cases.

Marijuana Use and American Indian/Alaska Native Youth in Washington State

Marijuana Use and American Indian/Alaska Native Youth in Washington State

Primary author: Faith Price
Faculty sponsor: Elizabeth Weybright

Primary college/unit: Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences
Campus: Pullman

Abstract:

American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth have higher rates of marijuana use than their peers nationally. However, substance use trends differ by region and there is immense diversity amongst Tribes. In addition, many AI/AN youth are from multicultural heritages, a group typically ignored by research.

This study used data from tenth grade respondents to the Washington Healthy Youth Survey from 2006-2018 to explore marijuana use prevalence rates amongst AI/AN-only and multicultural AI/AN youth in Washington state and the risk and protective factors influencing their substance use. Statistical analyses revealed both AI/AN-only and multicultural AI/AN HYS respondents had significantly higher marijuana use prevalence rates than their non-Native peers. Both groups of AI/AN youth were also initiating marijuana use at significantly younger ages than their non-Native peers. In addition, AI/AN-only and multicultural AI/AN tenth graders reported significantly higher means of risk factors and lower means of protective factors than non-Native youth. However, many of the risk and protective factors associated with marijuana use for non-Native youth were not significantly predictive of marijuana use for AI/AN-only youth, nor, to a lesser extent, multicultural AI/AN youth.

This study’s findings suggest that research needs to be inclusive of multicultural AI/AN health, a substantial segment of the AI/AN population that is at high risk and generally overlooked. In addition, both AI/AN-only and multicultural AI/AN youth have unique risk and protective factors from the general population which may better explain marijuana use patterns. Prevention programs must address these unique needs if they are to effectively serve AI/AN populations.

Field Recordings of Nez Perce Native Singers, 2019-2020

Field Recordings of Nez Perce Native Singers, 2019-2020

Primary author: Melissa Parkhurst

Primary college/unit: WSU Center for Arts and Humanities; WSU School of Music; NW Public Broadcasting
Campus: Pullman

Abstract:

WSU’s Pullman campus is located on the traditional lands of the Nimiipuu, known also as the Nez Perce. Song has long permeated all aspects of life for the Nez Perce people, giving power, protection, and healing, and transmitting knowledge that solidifies community bonds.

Since the time of contact, the intense pressures of colonialism, missionization, land dispersal, boarding schools, and acculturation have changed and augmented the Nez Perce body of song. New religions (e.g., the Feather Religion and Washat / Seven Drum) emerged on the Plateau. Nez Perce musicians returned home from boarding schools to start jazz combos and swing bands such as The Nez Percians. More recently, Nez Perce youth have spearheaded community and campus powwows, drum groups, and dance competitions.

Since June 2019, our project team has recorded singers at Talmaks, Idaho; Lapwai, Idaho; and here in the recording studio at the WSU School of Music. In spring 2020, we will record culture bearers in Pendleton, Oregon. Singers choose which songs they wish to record, how their recordings will be used, and where the recordings will be archived.

Many of the singers are older and the bodies of songs they know constitute inestimable cultural treasures. The songs contain extensive history, teachings, and traditional knowledge. Young people can hear the voices of their grandparents and know that their culture is alive and thriving today within the Nez Perce Reservation and beyond.

Effect of College Readiness Program on Student Motivation for College

Effect of College Readiness Program on Student Motivation for College

Primary author: Oluwasola Oni
Faculty sponsor: Olusola Adesope

Primary college/unit: College of Education
Campus: Pullman

Abstract:

Previous studies have indicated disparity between first-generation students and students of parents with higher educational attainment (Horn and Nunez, 2000). Consequently, programs have emerged demonstrating success in bridging the gap in increasing college enrollment among first-generation and low-income students. This research explored the effect of the Coug Rise College Readiness Program on students’ motivation to pursue college. This study examined disparity in educational attainment, race, and gender as independent variables influencing student motivation. The two groups of students were assessed (1) continuing high school students (track 3) and (2) prospective college freshmen (track 2). This non-randomized purposive sampling study comprised of 28 first-generation and low-income students (males and females) across 7 racial identities; ten (10) Hispanic/Latinx, six (6) white, three (3) American Indian or Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, one (1) Black or African American, one (1) was Asian and the remain seven (7) were Multi-racial. We performed a test of independence chi-square on SPSS because variables were ordinal and categorical. Findings from this study showed that there was no difference in student motivation based on the level of educational attainment, race, and gender. However, across the different races in the study, all the students confirmed that they were motivated to enroll in college after the summer program. These findings have eliminated the level of educational attainment, race, and gender as factors influencing students’ perception. Hence, it enhanced the influence of the program on student motivation. In conclusion, the study contributes to the growing literature on college readiness programs.

A Comparative Study of the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (Santiago, Chile)

A Comparative Study of the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (Santiago, Chile)

Primary author: Vilma Navarro-Daniels
Co-author(s): Maria Serenella Previto

Primary college/unit: Arts and Sciences
Campus: Pullman

Abstract:

The Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance houses a huge collection of documents, pictures, videos, and artifacts related to the resistance against Trujillo. It is visited by hundreds of Dominicans from all over the country as well as schoolers and their teachers. Dominicans do not doubt about the dictatorial nature of Trujillo’s rule (1930-1961). Although in Chile there is a Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Chilean people do not share a common memory about the Pinochet Era (1973-1990). My research focuses on the role and impact that the aforementioned museums and the way they were implemented, promoted, advertised, and interpreted from hegemonic centers of political power may have had on nowadays Chilean historical denial of the political genocide that took place under Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in opposition to the well consolidated and shared memory about the atrocities committed during the Trujillo Era that can be observed in Dominican Republic. Thus, my research studies and analyzes these museums in connection to the politics of memory or – conversely— oblivion, the latter also named Historical Alzheimer, and makes progress in the theoretical understanding of museums as components of urban spaces, which are protected and managed in order to achieve very precise goals: Museums are texts, meaning they are narrations that shape nations (Homi Bhabha) and, by doing so, they create a “usable past” (Henry Steele Commager), which, in turn, will form and set up future citizens as either anchored in a shared past or, on the contrary, detached from their own history.

Critical Perspectives on Gender and Colonialism

Critical Perspectives on Gender and Colonialism

Primary author: Pavithra Narayanan

Primary college/unit: Arts and Sciences
Campus: Vancouver

Abstract:

In a globalized world, heir to two centuries of unprecedented economic, social, political, environmental, and cultural transformation, few changes are as radical as anti-colonial and feminist challenges to patriarchal gender and sexuality conventions. Converging threads in the disciplines of History, English, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies to highlight the divergent effects of colonialism, anti-colonialism, and post-colonialism globally, WSU Vancouver and Pullman Humanities faculty organized a spring 2019 interdisciplinary Gender and Colonialism Humanities Symposium at the WSU Vancouver campus. This collaborative project was sponsored by the WSU Arts & Humanities Center.
The poster will highlight the innovative research of ten scholars from West Coast universities who were invited to participate in the symposium. The first panel on “decolonizing history/historiographies” examined how the academe privileges certain discourses while excluding others and reinterpreting gendered themes like motherhood and family from the perspectives of activism, agency, and desire. The second, on “dissonant/unruly bodies,” offered deeply nuanced interpretations of how enslaved Jamaican women perceived their own mothering practices; contemporary mythologies of orientalized bellydancing in Latin America; a memoir and investigation of queer/trans spaces in Los Angeles; and a historical investigation of healthy women assigned to do the laundry of people suffering from leprosy in Molakai. The final panel, “Gendered Spaces in Empire,” was historical and focused on ideologies of gender in Mexico, Okinawa, and India. The discussion that followed brought back the morning’s calls to “decolonization of the academe” to consider the political implications of the ways that some historical arguments framed their inquiries.

STEM-Oriented Alliance for Research (SOAR): An educational model for interdisciplinary project-based learning

STEM-Oriented Alliance for Research (SOAR): An educational model for interdisciplinary project-based learning

Primary author: Jacob Murray
Co-author(s): Soobin Seo; Lucrezia Cuen-Paxson; Mark Beattie

Primary college/unit: Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture
Campus: Everett

Abstract:
This work details the development, design, and implementation of an interdisciplinary project-based learning approach. The project offers a transformative educational experience to students at WSU Everett merging coursework across three different academic disciplines. STEM education has been challenged by industries to incorporate business and communication experiences that prepare students for the workplace.

Phase one developed an interdisciplinary course launched spring 2019. A total of 59 students (28 Business, 10 Communication, and 21 Electrical Engineering students) participated in the project, working on seven industry-sponsored projects. While all students were required to work together, each discipline was responsible for separate deliverables. Electrical Engineering students designed prototypes, Business students designed marketing plans, and Communication students created videos and infographics. Initial results showed high levels of student satisfaction, enjoyment, and unique educational experience. However, students rated the group structural components relatively lower.

Phase two developed additional structure to our project. We built a roadmap which details major milestones and events including a kick-off event, escape room team-building activity, interdisciplinary workshop, business pitch, and a final pitch and poster presentation. The course assignments include project vision and summary; product description, significance and rationale; market description; business pitch; and a press release and product pitch.

Preliminary data suggests collaboration in interdisciplinary project-based learning does initially produce disorientation, some trepidation and confusion. However, ultimately these disorienting dilemmas lead to transformative learning, increased confidence and cohesion among disciplines. The results of this work will inform educators creating interdisciplinary project-based coursework that meets the growing demands of the workplace.

A multiplicity of barriers: The self-employment of immigrant Hispanic women in the United States

A multiplicity of barriers: The self-employment of immigrant Hispanic women in the United States

Primary author: Samuel Mindes

Primary college/unit: Arts and Sciences
Campus: Pullman

Abstract:

A range of factors influences the economic opportunities for Hispanic women. These barriers include family construction, such as marital status, children at home, and living arrangements. Economic opportunities also hinge on educational and employment history, the status of the local economy, the composition of the local community, and a range of other individual characteristics. Indeed, these critical barriers overlap and interact with cultural expectations. Chiefly to this is immigration status, which is a crucial backdrop to these barriers due to cultural tensions and family expectations. These barriers are particularly central to shaping involvement in the self-employment sector, which is more contingent on these dynamics than wage work. Furthermore, self-employed business incorporation also hinges on these and other factors. We investigate how personal, familial, and social factors influence self-employment propensity and business incorporation for Hispanic women at the intersection of Hispanic group membership and immigrant status. While incorporation offers essential benefits, such as protection of assets, credibility, access to capital, and tax advantages, it also requires more capital and thus has additional barriers. For Hispanic women, barriers to economic success are numerous. However, self-employment can be both an opportunity to find success or a last-ditch effort to have some source of income. Through statistical modeling of American Community Survey data, we explain the impact of individual and social characteristics on the self-employment of Hispanic women in the United States. Our results find that one’s immigrant generation and Hispanic group is central to shaping the impact of individual, family, and social characteristics.

BAM!: Chicago’s Black Arts Movement

BAM!: Chicago’s Black Arts Movement

Primary author: Thabiti Lewis
Co-author(s): Pavithra Narayanan

Primary college/unit: Arts and Sciences
Campus: Vancouver

Abstract:

The film examines the Black Arts Movement in Chicago, which is an epicenter of the black diaspora. The film “BAM! Chicago’s Black Arts Movement” features interviews with Museum director Carol Adams, publisher and poet Haki Madhubuti, Safisha Madhubuti, Eugene Redmond, Mwata Bowden, Angela Jackson and many other artists and scholars. The film introduces viewers to the history of Chicago’s Black Arts Movement (BAM) and reflects on the extensive national and international impact of Chicago’s Black writers, musicians and community organizers and the organizations and institutions that they supported and founded including the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), Negro Digest/Black World, Ebony Talent Agency (ETA), the DuSable Museum, Third World Press, Johnson Publishing, Kuumba Theatre, and the South Side Community Arts Center.
The film explores the 1960s era of art and politics and why Chicago emerged as one of the most important cities and was able to be such an influential matrix for Black communities across the country seeking to duplicate Chicago’s institutional building and arts scene.
Preview of Film: https://vimeo.com/295695342
Runtime: 55 minutes

When is a threat more or less of a threat? The sensitivity of highly central identities to threat and the increased likelihood of feeling offended, identity protection, withdrawal, and antisocial behaviors

When is a threat more or less of a threat? The sensitivity of highly central identities to threat and the increased likelihood of feeling offended, identity protection, withdrawal, and antisocial behaviors

Primary author: Hana Johnson
Co-author(s): JT Bates

Primary college/unit: Carson College of Business
Campus: Pullman

Abstract:

High identity centrality refers to identities (i.e., self-definitions) that are so important to individuals that they are top-of-mind for them across situations. These identities are highly salient and may therefore easily transition from being top-of-mind to actually affecting behavior; this can occur when identities are under threat. In the workplace, identity threat may result directly from insulting comments or criticisms but may also arise more inadvertently through work practices or changes in management. If these types of experiences involve a highly central identity, we argue that employees are more likely to perceive a threat. We then further explore how employees respond to threat to highly central identities by identifying the different emotional and behavioral responses individuals engage when the target of the threat is a more versus less central identity.

We test the sensitivity of highly central identities to threat in an experimental pilot study and then explore responses to threat related to highly central identities in a qualitative study. Using a grounded theory approach, we find that individuals are more likely to feel offended and engage in behaviors to protect their identities when threat is related to highly central identities. This protection of identities requires sustained effort to minimize the identity threat. In addition, when individuals experience threat to highly central identities, they are more likely to withdraw from situations and behave in an antisocial manner such as engaging in angry and aggressive behavior. Our work has implications for theory on identity, identity threat, and negative emotions.