THURJ: The Honors Undergraduate Research Journal
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The Honors Undergraduate Research Journal (THURJ) is an annual publication that celebrates undergraduate research in all academic disciplines. Each spring, THURJ publishes the best undergraduate research papers from the previous year written by Honors students, as determined by an editorial board of their peers. The editorial board reads and evaluates submissions using a blind review process, and chooses between 8-12 papers for publication in the journal. All published authors also receive a $100 prize.
THURJ is advised by two Honors College faculty who select approximately eight students to serve on the editorial board each year.
If you are interested in serving on the THURJ editorial board, look for publicized announcements in August and September about the application deadline.
If you are interested in submitting a paper to THURJ for consideration for publication, look for publicized announcements in December and January about the submission deadline.Deadlines for this program vary from year to year based on decisions made by the Student Editorial Board. Please contact the Honors College for details.
For more information, go to the Honors College Undergraduate Research website or contact Dr. Dan Mains or Will O'Donnell.
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Recent Submissions
Undergraduate Open Access Spontaneous Generation and Kuhn's Model of Scientific Revolution(2012) Hill, AlyssaThomas S. Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" describes the cyclical process by which science develops. This process, far from one of slow, gradual accumulation, is a process of revolution in which one framework for scientific thought is continually displaced by another. Its beginning is marked by the establishment of a paradigm, which allows for normal science to occur. Normal science illuminates anomalies, which may be resolved under the established paradigm, shelved, or deemed significant enough to cause a crisis. If a crisis results, a scientific revolution soon follows, and a new paradigm is established. The process then repeats itself. An example that illustrates Kuhn's model well is the replacement theory of spontaneous generation with the theory of biogenesis, which revolutionized the field of microbiology.Undergraduate Open Access THURJ: The Honors Undergraduate Research Journal, Volume 15 (2016)(2016) Mains, Dr. Dan; O'Donnell, Will; Townsend, Cole; Sandhu, Uzma; Herndon, Matthew; Javanovic, Lexi; Burns, Laura; Holland, Daniel; Ikpa, Blessing; Mian, Maryam; Prentiss, Bianca; Roberts, Carl; Royer, Daniella; Schatzman, Grant; Terrell, ChynnaA publication of the Joe C. and Carole Kerr McClendon Honors College at the University of Oklahoma.Undergraduate Open Access Women of the Wild: Women, Outdoor Sport, and Changing Gender Roles(2016) Capps, SarahToday, a quick Internet search will reveal that shooting, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, and camping are all recreational activities that fall into the category of “outdoorsman” sports. As the name “outdoorsman” suggests, people did and do associate these activities with masculinity. In such sports, men supposedly distance themselves from cities and homely comforts. Some activities demand extreme physical exertion as well as the exercise of violence and power. Despite such stereotypes, plenty of women today enjoy these pastimes. Women’s involvement in outdoorsman sports suggests a trend of women who defied gender norms and associations and whose participation over time made the idea of an “outdoorswoman” more commonplace. So when did women become involved in these recreational activities? Who were these trailblazers and how did they justify their participation in such masculine pastimes? As it turns out, women have long participated in these recreational activities. In some sports, such as mountain climbing, women were involved from the inception of the sport in the United States. As outdoorswomen, their actions challenged Victorian gender ideals which emphasized domesticity for women. The rise in popularity of women’s outdoor sports both reflected and helped to develop a new gender ideal, the New Woman.Undergraduate Open Access A Grand Evasion: How Corporations Deprive Workers, Government, and Society by Widespread Tax Avoidance(2016) Coker, JesseCorporate tax avoidance is a growing concern for the stability of America. Corporations are able to avoid paying their dues to society and instead extract economics rents from both workers and the government. This paper will begin by proving that the typical neoclassical assumptions about marginal productivities are flawed and that corporations have wage setting power. The second section will include an analysis of the strategies for and the prevalence of corporate tax sheltering, including a few case studies. The third section will address the negative externalities of tax avoidance on citizens and the government, and the fourth section will culminate the argument with a discussion of possible reform measures, including an extremely creative idea. The goal is to illuminate the irresponsibility of corporate tax avoidance and to encourage cooperative global efforts to redistribute income from the companies who hoard profits to the citizens they take it from.Undergraduate Open Access Le Prix du Sucre(2016) Courts, AlannaToday’s society, as many before it, views sugar as the embodiment of pleasure, luxury, and jubilance. Society’s infatuation with sugar is seen in the figurative usage of the word sweet, the association of children with sweetness, the belief that sugar makes one giddy, and the necessary presence of sugar at joyous celebrations. What festivity would be complete without the consumption of sugary delights? Yet, the role sugar played in the project of empire and the long-standing effects of the sugar trade tell a bleaker tale of a commodity stained with the blood of humans and marked with the treachery of consumerism. Though numerous commodities, or more specifically cash crops, helped to shape society, sugar is unmatched in its effects on economies, cultures, politics, health, and the environment. The study of the sugar revolution reveals “the transformative power of a single commodity” that is best termed as “crop determinism” (Higman 213). The immense influence of sugar and the similar current cash crop domination expose the power of agriculture in our society and, ultimately, the power of consumers and their desires. The conditions that gave birth to the sugar revolution in the Caribbean and the consequences of commodity globalization display the unparalleled power of sugar in society then and now, as well as the lengths humans are willing to go in order to maintain a consumer-based economy.Undergraduate Open Access Arabella Buckley's Epic: Uniting Evolutionary Epic & Spiritualism to Account for the Evolution of Morals from Mutualism(2016) Larsen, JordanIn 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species (The Origin), outlining his theory of evolution through the mechanism of natural selection. With this text, he employed and shaped the genre of evolutionary epic, one of the most significant narrative formats of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Characterized by a progressive synthesis of scientific knowledge covering vast sweeps of time and aimed at readers of variable class, profession, and education, the evolutionary epic became a useful genre for Victorian science writers and popularizers. In his conclusion to The Origin, Darwin laid the foundation of the debate over the narrative of evolutionary epic. The final lines of his text read: "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved." We encounter Darwin’s epic narrative here: the drama of the “war of nature, from famine and death,” full of competition, allows his mechanism, lawful development through natural selection, to result in the “exalted” higher animals, humans. While Darwin’s diction provides evidence of his markedly progressive view of evolution, less clear are his convictions of theism or materialism and of mutualism or competition in the epic of evolution. Though he added the phrase “breathed by the Creator” to his second edition of The Origin a few weeks after the first edition’s publication, whether this edit reflects a theistic understanding of natural selection or an attempt to appease theistic readers and friends remains ambiguous. Subsequent editions of The Origin retained the edit, and apologists on each side of the evolutionary epic’s theist-materialist debate retained their positions.Undergraduate Open Access Space and the Psychology of Personality Types: How Personality Influences Reactions to Architectural Space(2016) Miller, ChaseResearchers in both architecture and psychology agree that open office plans can have significant negative consequences for employees. This, though, is where universal agreement ends: researchers in both fields have struggled to identify specific and repeatable negative effects of open offices. Some studies have linked open plans to privacy concerns and decreased job satisfaction (Oldham & Brass, 1979, p. 267; Brennan et al., 2002, p. 279), but others have found better communication and increased job satisfaction for some types of employees (Zalesny & Farace, 1987, p. 253). Employee reactions to open office spaces seem to vary by task, organizational status, age, and a myriad of other factors, which makes it difficult for architects to determine how offices should be designed.Undergraduate Open Access El Curandero Actual: Preserving Indigenous Identity Through Mexican Folk Healing’s Chants(2016) Stiefer, AustonCuranderismo is a syncretic form of Mexican folk healing whose origins date back to the Spanish colonization of the Americas. This medical system, drawing from both indigenous healing practices and Catholic spirituality, has been preserved throughout history by marginalized indigenous groups lacking access to biomedical healthcare. Today, variations of curandero practices are commonly practiced throughout Mexico as far south as the states of Oaxaca and Morelos and spanning far north, past the Rio Grande and even into Colorado. These practices coexist with modern biomedicine despite a long history of the repression of indigenous peoples by Europeans, and thus represent a reconciliation between these two cultures.Undergraduate Open Access Between a Poor and a Poorer Place: Why Welfare Should View the Labor Market as the Problem Rather than the Solution to Poverty(2016) Coker, JesseThis paper seeks to argue, in direct contrast to Clinton’s reforms in the 1990s, that the modern American welfare state should view the secondary labor market as the primary problem low income citizens face rather than the solution to poverty. Section I will summarize the history of welfare in the US by describing how an illegitimate caricature of welfare recipients precipitated a shift towards welfare-to-work policies. Section II will show that the secondary labor market, where welfare recipients are forced to work, harms low-wage workers and that the welfare-to-work program TANF does not improve recipients’ outcomes either during or after the program. Section III will conclude by taking a review of welfare policies and arguing that welfare should focus on structural labor market problems rather than welfare-to-work or basic income guarantee schemes.Undergraduate Open Access Dinner and a Date: the Misguiding Nature of Expiration Dates and Their Influence on Consumer Food Waste Behavior(2016) Fiedler, LisaFood waste is largely considered one of the greatest paradoxes of today: while millions of people in the world starve, we waste an astonishing amount of the food we produce. One factor that produces a substantial amount of food waste is the consumer misinterpretation of food date labels, which are inconsistent, confusing, and misunderstood. This study is a comprehensive overview of the history of food dates in the United States, the failures of the current system, an analysis of current consumer perceptions of food dates, and concrete recommendations for needed actions to solve this food date labeling crisis.Undergraduate Open Access But Where Are All the Women? Examining the Often Overlooked Role of Women in and against Islamist Extremism(2016) Rice, AlissaOver the past several decades, Islamist extremism has become an omnipresent topic in discussions of global politics, national security, and international relations. However, women have been conspicuously absent from such discourse. Although women play a unique and profound role in both the perpetuation and opposition of Islamist extremist movements, female voices are consistently overlooked and neglected in both the mainstream media and academic scholarship. This dearth of women’s perspectives is particularly appalling considering that women are often the population segment most intensely affected when religious extremism takes hold in a society. When women are excluded from the conversation and denied a seat at the table, an important component of the discourse is lost. Because women often serve as the backbone of the family and, by extension, society, they are likely to be a key factor in countering Islamic extremism and must, therefore, be an integral part of the conversation in order to find a solution.Undergraduate Open Access The Economics of Affirmative Action Admissions Policies for Asian American Students(2015) Cai, Angela; Rath, MichaelIn the realm of higher education, Asian American students have thrived in terms of academic excellence. During the last fifty years, many Asian Americans have done so well academically that they are no longer underrepresented on college campuses in the United States. For instance, in 2000, Asian Americans made up 5.9% of college students, but only 4% of the United States population (Harvey & Anderson, 2004). Although this may seem like a success story for Asian Americans, who were often discriminated against in the past, their triumphs in the academic world have actually caused them to again become victim to discriminatory affirmative action policies.Undergraduate Open Access Cross-Cultural Musical Healing Practices: Egocentric and Sociocentric Approaches(2015) Jebaraj, Abigail; Rath, MichaelThe maintenance of health and healing when illness arises can be approached from different perspectives, apparent in diverse healing practices around the world. One system of healthcare delivery that has occupied a powerful position due to its origins in dominating countries is the western medical perspective. The development of the western viewpoint of disease resulted from an emphasis on observations and the sciences, such as chemistry and biology, which are constantly changing in the body during various stages ofhealth and illness. This perspective has enabled the broadening of knowledge about physiological processes of the body and the development of incredible technological and pharmaceutical medical interventions. However, in viewing the human body as a center for cause and effect with biological processes and chemical interactions, traditional western medicine has set up the approach of separating the body from the mind and physical characteristics from the emotional and spiritual characteristics in the prevention and treatment of sickness.Undergraduate Open Access Too Big to Hail: Why We Need to Split Up the Ninth Circuit(2015) Sulkowski, John; Rath, MichaelSome may say that at the rate law schools are churning them out, there will be more lawyers than humans by 2050. While this little population “prediction” does provide a nice laugh, it also speaks to the increasingly litigious nature of American society in recent times. Americans, in general, respect the rule of law, but they are also becoming increasingly involved with it in a variety of fields and topics. Thus, it should be alarming to Americans that justice is not being properly dispensed everywhere in the country. The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appears as an anomaly in the judicial system. Spanning from Arizona to Alaska and from Montana to Guam, the Ninth Circuit jumps off the map when compared to other circuits. It encompasses the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii; the territory of Guam; and the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (Roll 2007, 109). It covers more states (nine) than any other circuit with one of them, California, being the most populous state in the nation and two, Arizona and Nevada, among the fastest growing states. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Ninth Circuit houses close to a fifth of the population with around 60 million people on about forty percent of the country’s land (Roll 2007, 110).Undergraduate Open Access Modes of Violence Against Puerto Rico’s Urban Poor: Housing Policy in Puerto Rico(2015) Rodriguez, Monique; Rath, MichaelPublic housing projects reserved for low-income families in Puerto Rico are known as caseríos. A caserío consists of several tenement structures subdivided into one-family apartments built on a large and compact settlement (Duany 1997:201). These projects are ubiquitous around the island. I argue that caseríos are unable to serve the needs of their residents and are even sites of various modes of violence against the urban poor. Residents of public housing are subjected to both significant explicit and structural violence, but much more pervasive is the latter. Forms of explicit violence residents face include police brutality and media sanctioning of violence against youth. Forms of structural violence include limited socioeconomic mobility, segregation and isolation within and between neighborhoods, governmental neglect of facilities, and forced reconfigurations of kinship networks and family organization.Undergraduate Open Access China’s South-to-North Water Transfer Project(2015) Marrs, Erika; Rath, MichaelChina’s ongoing South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is the largest water pipeline project that has ever been undertaken anywhere in the world. At its completion sometime around 2050, it will connect the southern Yangtze River and northern Yellow River with 2,700 miles of tunnels and canals via three distinct routes through western, central and eastern China. This project is ecologically irresponsible and economically inefficient, but government officials staunchly defend it by highlighting its connection with historical Chinese water-use practices and its promise of sustaining economic growth. While water scarcity is a serious and growing problem in China, this project will have far-reaching, devastating, and unforeseeable consequences and will therefore exacerbate existing problems while introducing new ones. The Chinese government should instead pursue self-sufficient, environmentally friendly alternatives in lieu of this grandiose and wasteful water transfer scheme. Such alternatives can be realized, but only if Beijing can learn to adapt to the country’s environmental realities and successfully promote water conservation practices.Undergraduate Open Access A Study of Female Representation in American Popular Music Festival Culture(2015) Van Amburgh, Hannah; Rath, MichaelWhen music festivals featuring both popular artists and more underground genres first appeared in the United States in the mid-twentieth century, they provided individuals with an opportunity to escape from reality and join a community of fellow music enthusiasts and admirers. These events, such as the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and the original Woodstock Festival in 1969, influenced the entire North American music culture and moved the rock and alternative genres into mainstream attractions (A History of Music Festivals, 2013). American music festival culture has flourished since the millennium, with live concert ticket sales replacing much of the loss recorded music sales have experienced as digital music services gain popularity and dominance in the industry (Parker, 2013). Despite the overall enthusiasm for music festivals in the United States, there has been a rather noticeable concern among the most popular festivals that brings the relevant consciousness of the live event production industry into question: where are all the women?Undergraduate Open Access Weapons of Mass Destruction: OTC Derivatives and the 2008 Financial Crisis(2015) Coker, Jesse; Rath, MichaelIn 2002, Warren Buffet included a warning in his annual letter to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway which now seems eerily prophetic: “We view [derivatives] as time bombs, [as] financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal” (12, 14). These hidden dangers were painfully revealed in 2008 and 2009, when the ballooning housing, stock, and mortgage-backed security markets imploded simultaneously, bringing about the worst domestic recession since the Great Depression (“Financial Crisis Response”). Measured from 2006-2009, the “credit crisis” increased unemployment from 4.6% to over 10%, reduced US stock market capitalization by almost $5 trillion, decreased real gross private investment by a staggering 31.42%, and resulted in the federal government doling out over $1.1 trillion of aid to prevent the failure of well-established corporations including AIG, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, and the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Kolb 261-269). Unraveling the complex series of events that created the financial crisis remains challenging, since “no single cause [of the crisis] can be identified” (Kolb xi). However, one factor lies at the center of this web of causality: over-the-counter, mortgage-backed derivatives. The 2008 financial crisis clearly illustrates how the unregulated over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market has the inherent tendency and capacity to create securities capable of toppling financial markets.Undergraduate Open Access Fancydancing: the Art of Self(2015) Doan, Melissa; Rath, MichaelVisual images of the drunken, vanishing, or stoic Indian are commonplace within the popular imagination. Indigenous films have provided a medium to challenge and refute these stereotypes. As a Native American writer and filmmaker, Sherman Alexie aims to blur and destabilize the boundaries at the intersections of these categories. Only then do these categories become tangible and meaningful, particularly in regard to their role in comprising the modern Indian identity. Through his film, The Business of Fancydancing, Sherman Alexie explores the themes of alcoholism, reservation life, and masculinity within the Native American condition to challenge his audience to negotiate multiple identities. He subverts the stereotypes and categorization of these themes through developing characters who struggle to reconcile these themes within their own identities. With films featuring relatable characters that are complex and flawed, Alexie cultivates sovereignty of self-identity as an artistic and sociocultural practice through filmmaking.Undergraduate Open Access The ART of Producing Responsa: Feminist Critiques of Rabbinic Law through the Lens of Assisted Reproductive Technologies(2015) Pemberton, Andrea; Rath, MichaelPrior to the mid-twentieth century, when assisted reproductive technologies (ART) stepped on to the medical scene, supplications and prayers to God were the primary means for religious Jewish couples to cope with the issue of infertility. However, with the advent of artificial insemination techniques, fertility hormones, in vitro fertilization, and surrogacy, new medical technologies have successfully generated proactive methods for infertile individuals to have biological children of their own. Yet as these controversial technologies emerge, and prove to be of interest and use to Jewish persons, rabbis are compelled to contend with this new and challenging issue. In an effort to comply with halakha, or rabbinic law, modern rabbis have interpreted ART in various ways, putting restrictions on certain forms and implementing guidelines for their use in general. For religious Orthodox Jews, halakha is a prominent feature of everyday life that influences his or her actions and interactions in the most direct way. Because of this observance, Orthodox couples undergoing fertility treatment and utilizing ART take seriously the guidance of their rabbis, who are seen as authorities on halakha. Consequently, a potential problem that emerges from the halakhic discourse on assisted reproductive technologies is that this set of symbolically-loaded medical procedures takes place within the female body, yet is dictated by the tractates ofa male-dominated religious legal system. The purpose of this paper, then, is to utilize feminist critiques of gender bias in legal systems to critically analyze Orthodox rabbinic discourse on assisted reproductive technologies. Due the unique cultural situation in Israel, which boasts a relatively strong Modern Orthodox presence, a pro-natal government, and unparalleled access to cheap fertility treatments for its citizens, this research will also reflect on the social and political ramifications rabbinic rulings have on the assisted reproductive scene in Israel. Additionally, this paper will reflect on the importance of working within the halakhic system to achieve greater gender equality, and explore potential options for Orthodox feminists to realize that goal.