Summit Institutional Repository @ PSU
Summit Institutional Repository @ Plymouth State University is a digital repository for gathering, indexing, preserving, and making available a treasury of research and scholarly work generated by PSU faculty, students and staff. Based on the principle of Open Access, one of Summit's key missions is to ensure that these scholarly and creative endeavors are accessible to the widest possible audience.
These collections are freely available, organized, made accessible by PSU's Lamson Library. They demonstrate the summit of academic production at the University and its commitment to encourage transformational teaching and connected learning, to advance the Plymouth State University motto - Ut prosim (That I may serve). The content is available to be used responsibly under fair use US copyright law for personal and educational purposes or with the permission of the authors and/or copyright holders. For more information about submitting your work to Summit, please contact us at psu-lamson-repository@plymouth.edu.
Recent Submissions
Item A Formative Program Evaluation of the "Creating a Culture of Care in Schools using Restorative Practices" Implementation Team Training(2025)The Maine School Safety Center (MSSC) created the “Creating a Culture of Care in Schools Using Restorative Practices” program in response to requests from school leaders for assistance in training staff to equitably support the increasingly complicated and dysregulated behavior students were exhibiting. This need was complicated by the geography of Maine and its status as the state with the most rural schools (67%) in the U.S., which limits accessibility to training for many educators. This mixed method formative program evaluation, presented for the degree of Doctor of Education in Leadership, Learning and Community, grounded in the Ethic of Care, Sociocultural Theory and Restorative Justice Theory, examined the efficacy of the program’s implementation team training. Accessibility of programming for rural schools was also evaluated. Data was collected using a survey of implementation team training completers. Findings revealed success in responding to the needs of rural schools as a result of the MSSCs policy of on-site training. Respondents achieved foundational understanding of restorative practices and application, but desired additional opportunities to rehearse the skills in supported settings. Additionally, a discrepancy was revealed between school administrators and staff in the perception of potential staff and community buy-in. This research contributes to the growing body of scholarship that defines best practices in school based restorative practices implementation, particularly in rural settings.Item Housing and Residential Life Staffing: A Phenomenological Study Exploring the Lived Experiences of Residential Life Professional Staff(2024)This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of entry-level live-in residential life professional staff at two University System of New Hampshire (USNH) institutions. An initial survey was conducted to gain insights into the characteristics of these individuals and perceptions of their lived experiences. Interested participants were then invited for virtual individual interviews to delve more deeply into these perceptions. The verbatim transcriptions of the interviews were analyzed thematically, which included two coding rounds to identify key themes. Participants viewed their experiences positively and identified motivating factors for pursuing roles in housing and residential life programs. Participants described barriers related to work-life balance while also sharing potential improvements related to the functions of their roles. Several sub-themes highlighted the importance of academic and behavioral interventions and student connections through programming and crisis response, underscoring these aspects as vital components of their roles. The participants emphasized that making meaningful impacts on students' lives by balancing enforcement with mentorship, providing resources, and building significant relationships contributes to a sense of fulfillment. The study concluded that the lived experiences of entry-level live-in residential life professional staff are complex and multidimensional. For higher education and housing and residential life leadership, the findings suggest a need to consider these complexities when recruiting, training, retaining, and developing staff in these roles. Understanding residential life staff members’ experiences can enhance the overall effectiveness and satisfaction of people in these positions, ultimately benefiting the students they serve.Item Career Anxiety in Post-COVID Generation Z College Students(2025)The COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented interruption during the early adolescent years, limiting the career exploration phase and interrupting career identity development. This descriptive qualitative phenomenological study was guided by the Career Constructivist Theory and grounded by the Ethic of Care, and explored the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on college students’ career-related anxiety. Disruptions to structured time and face-to-face communication led to prolonged alone time, increased social media use, and decreased social skill development. These conditions contributed to widespread mental health concerns, including increased social anxiety, leading to decreased motivation, increased procrastination, and greater indecision at the college level. Five years after the onset of the pandemic, social anxiety attributes that plague these emerging adults continue to interrupt the exploration of work experience opportunities, collecting career-relevant information, and gaining work skills in college. The findings underscore the urgent need for higher education institutions to acknowledge and address the ongoing social anxiety impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.Item INTERACTION BETWEEN STRATOSPHERIC MESOSCALE GRAVITY WAVES AND CYCLONIC ACTIVITY ON THE NORTHEASTERN AMERICAN COAST(2025)Stratospheric gravity wave activity has small but distinct impacts on circulation, thermal structure, turbulence, and mixing, rendering them crucial to accurate understanding and modeling of the middle atmosphere. When extreme weather occurs, atmospheric disturbances can interact with the tropopause and lower stratosphere, generating and/or amplifying stratospheric mesoscale gravity wave (MGW) activity. This study aims to identity patterns present in stratospheric MGWs during extreme Nor’easter events, which have been identified to occur in a region that is a hotspot for gravity waves in the stratosphere, but have been minimally studied due to advances in satellite technology only allowing for effective research in the past 20-30 years, and due to gravity waves as a field being relatively niche to begin with. To accomplish the stated objective, nine case studies were selected - three comprised of major Nor’easter storms, three of moderate storms, and three of weak coastal lows. Brightness temperature (BT) perturbations and variances were retrieved from Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) observations at the 4.3 !m band, which were then used to extrapolate relative comparisons between wave amplitudes Additionally, brightness temperatures associated with cloud-tops were retrieved from the 8.1 !m band, along with WPC 3-hour surface analysis data, NCEI 5-minute radar data, and SPC 12-hour 250 mb upper air maps. These supplementary data were compared against the 4.3 !m BT perturbations and variances for 12-hour timesteps over the course of 48 hours before and 48 hours after the selected midpoint for each of the nine events. Analysis found that results matched prior studies, and additionally identified several distinct patterns. Cases that met or exceeded the bounds for a strong event (minimum pressure < 990 mb, maximum wind >=50 kt) consistently displayed heightened wave activity (above a threshold value of variance ≥ 0.05 K2) in trough or south-of-jet regions identified in previous work as a combination of both jet and convective influences. This was also somewhat present in moderate events, but not consistently in nearly all timesteps as it was in the major Nor’easters. Along with this, results showed that tropopause overshooting, a phenomenon responsible for stratospheric MGW generation and amplification, was frequently present during strong events. When this occurred, the position of wave packets with the highest variance values either mirrored the shape of the radar mosaic where overshooting was present, or did so twelve hours later, shifted further along the storm track, but in the same shape. Finally, results showed that areas of enhanced wave activity were typically bounded by fronts, with this being nearly always the case for strong events, and with a specific tendency for variance values ≥ 0.05 to follow the shape of cold cloud-top temperatures forming the comma cloud around a center low, but only on the northwest side of associated occluded fronts.Item Increasing Snowfall Events in the Northern Region of Saudi Arabia(2017)Saudi Arabia as part of the Middle East has been experiencing climate change effects. As a result of that, a there has been a noticeable increase in snowfall over the northern regions of Saudi Arabia. In this thesis work, different studies have been applied to better understanding this phenomenon, such as looking closely at the interannual trends in temperature, pressure and precipitation in the northern part of Saudi Arabia. Principle components of variation in temperature, pressure, and integrated precipitable water are also investigated. Work has been done to understand the correlation and time lag between these principle components and the Siberian High (SH). Data used in this work were obtained from different sources because of the data lack in that region. Data from six meteorological stations in the northern part of Saudi Arabia were used in this work including the surface and upper data. The results of this thesis are divided into two parts. The first part examines the regression between different components such as High-Level Thickness (HLDZ) (700hPa – 500hPa) and the sea level pressure (MSLP) which showed a negative relationship. Relations between Mid-Level Thickness (MLDZ) and MSLP, Potential Temperature () and MSLP, the westerly component of wind at 300 hPa (U300) and MSLP, U300 and , U300 and HLDZ and MLDZ, and U300 and the mean T are also examined. The results showed that SH has a strong influence over the northern region of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the cold air aloft associated with the SH leads the atmospheric thickness to shrink. The second part of results is a synoptic study on the north region of Saudi Arabia. The MSLP Composites Analyses indicated that the SH dominates a large area including the northern region of Saudi Arabia. In addition, the composites results have been divided into two cases, in rain cases and in snow cases to show what causes each case.
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