The main goal of resilience stories was to make evidence-based strategies of resilience available to the public, for these sorts of tools are of powerful use and have the potential to make positive changes in individuals’ lives. This summer, I researched these strategies and transformed them into easily digestible Instagram posts. Themes for these posts included resilience, micro-moments of joy, mindfulness, grit, self-compassion, social support, growth mindset, positive emotions, and many more. Some posts, such as “Quick Tips for Daily Mindfulness,” impart advice on incorporating resilient techniques into daily life. Other posts, such as the “Doing Mode vs. Being Mode” post, involve presenting information that could aid in developing resilient skills. The intention behind this project was to widen the impact of scientific findings. Rather than keeping evidence-based coping skills to the realm of scientific journals, or even only in therapy sessions, we wanted to make this information accessible to anyone. These techniques belong in everyone’s toolkit, and we are striving to make them as widespread as possible with our launch date in the fall.

Beyond our resilience lab Instagram, I also aided in Dr. Tugade’s lab study involving Neurofit. Neurofit is an eye-tracking device, involving an eye-tracking task, that gives indications of an individual’s cognitive health. This summer, we worked on developing a mindfulness-based intervention to determine whether mindfulness can improve cognitive abilities. After creating a procedure with Dr. Tugade’s other lab members – in which I specialized in developing the mindfulness intervention because of the extensive research I have done on that topic – we pilot-tested our study. We will begin actual testing this upcoming fall.

Rising climate concerns, coupled with the need for sustainable development, has led to the development of federal climate resources to tackle these issues. This summer, we (Demetri Sedita 26’ & Sebastian Montañez 25’) worked with Professor Cunningham to better understand what types of funding and planning resources are available to the City of Poughkeepsie, what capacity Poughkeepsie has to access these resources, and how Vassar students can aid in this process. 

Poughkeepsie is classified as an environmental justice community, defined as an area that has been historically underserved and has experienced disproportionate exposure to climate impacts.

CDC Social Vulnerability Index by census tract, from 0 to 1, with 1 being the most vulnerable. Pink municipality boundaries show the outline of Poughkeepsie, and Vassar College is in green eastward of the city (Online version of map).

We looked at two main pieces of legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The IRA is a federal policy which allocates $360 billion for climate change provisions. The CLCPA sets goals for emission reductions and renewable energy in New York, aiming for 100% renewable electricity by 2040. Both increase access to renewable energy programs in disadvantaged communities like Poughkeepsie, suggesting that the city can leverage the resources available under the IRA and CLCPA to address these issues. 

After discussions with community members, we discovered that local government departments are key players in driving climate initiatives. However, limited city-level capacity hinders Poughkeepsie from fully seizing these opportunities. We identified a potential for Vassar community engagement in local climate planning. Students and faculty can participate by joining regional groups or businesses, contributing to zoning code changes, and conducting research for funding opportunities. Successful engagement necessitates students with skills in writing, research, and an understanding of Poughkeepsie’s functioning and barriers.

The current funding ecosystem and renewable energy resources present unique opportunities for sustainability and climate planning. Engaging with these opportunities can contribute to community development while building valuable skills and experience for students and faculty interested in policy, social justice, and the local economy.

Over the past summer, migration patterns, labor and marriage markets in Mexico were my main focus; as well as my process to learn data analysis and research techniques with large databases. These databases were used in order to conclude one question: Did men’s migration or lack thereof, after the 2008 recession, affect women’s marriage markets and labor markets in Mexico? The four databases— ENADID, MCAS, Mexican Census, and ACS— enabled us to make a reliable conclusion about Mexican migration. With that information, we could determine where in the United States Mexican migration happens as well as from where in Mexico Mexican migration starts. The MCAS database is conclusively made up of the Matrículas Consulares issued, a document issued by the Mexican government that provides outside countries, such as the US, proof of Mexican nationality. After acknowledging the similarity with the other databases, using MCAS, we could determine whether migration of working age Mexicans decreased or increased after the recession. We compiled maps of Mexico which included data from each source: ENADID, MCAS, etc.; this was done in order to make conclusions about where Mexican migration starts and to determine the highest sending states. We compiled many graphs not included in the presentation, such as average women’s schooling per year, average men’s age per year, and marriages in municipalities based on high/low migration states, to name a few. These graphs were made in order to understand the marriage markets in Mexico, or essentially, how marriages were affected because of the change in migration to the United States. All of the above helped us gather assumptions about women’s marriage markets and labor markets in Mexico, and although I didn’t necessarily get to answer the question because of the many embedded factors, I can’t wait to continue working on the project this coming semester!

The tournament competition hypothesis is a prevailing explanation regarding China’s economic rise. It theorizes the existence of a meritocratic system that favors local leaders who are able to promote faster growth, thus leading to able officials being selected to manage the economy. This summer, we worked with Professor Fubing Su to study the core piece of the tournament competition: official promotion. We look into the possibility of factional politics, a contrasting argument against the meritocratic view. To test these two competing hypotheses, this project builds a database of politburo standing committee members and provincial government officials, including biographical information and all positions throughout their careers. This will allow us to code officials’ career path (promotion or demotion) and their network/factional ties.

The first step of our research is data collection. We updated biographical information of current provincial government officials to a database compiled in the past decade. We identified the names of these officials and located their full biographies on baike.baidu.com, a popular website in Chinese. Then we followed a system of codifications to enter all relevant information into the database and checked the accuracy of our codings after the first few trials to make sure that all information followed standard formats.   

We conducted our research remotely and were able to meet regularly online using Wechat. But it also had some downsides. China’s strict covid policy demanded all international travelers to be quarantined in hotels for two weeks. Unfortunately, one of us was locked in this regime for almost two months because her tests were unclear. This impaired the progress of our projects because hotel networks were poor and access to google platforms, where our collaborated project was stored, was restricted. Thanks to Professor Howlett and Alix, we were given an extension to continue our work. We aim to cross-check all entries again for standardization and to run our Rstudio codes to identify all network ties between politburo standing committee members and provincial leaders afterwards. This would complete all tasks in our original proposal.

This summer, I worked with Professor Christine Howlett to study community engagement through choral practice. For the first half of this research program, I helped run BachFest, a choral and orchestral festival with community singers. This included helping to organize rehearsals and materials, as well as having an administrative role in the festival’s planning and execution. I also got to participate in the choir. In addition, I wrote researched program notes about the background and history of the pieces that were performed.

A snapshot from the BachFest performance on June 26, 2022. Photo courtesy of Kevin T McEneany and The Millbrook Examiner.

After BachFest, I had the pleasure of interviewing members of Cappella Festiva, a community choir which Professor Howlett directs, as well as members of community choirs in my hometown of Fairfax, Virginia. These interviews were conducted via Zoom and then transcribed. Though the participants came from various backgrounds and had a variety of musical appreciation, education, and experience, all of the interviewees noted the profound impact that choral singing (and music in general) has had on their well-being, with many also pointing to its positive social effects.

In tandem with these two projects, I read many scientific studies pertaining to the effects of choral singing on mental health, well-being, and community engagement. These studies echoed what we found in our interviews, namely the power of singing as a stress relief, an escape, a social vehicle, and a labor of love. As a singer myself, I can corroborate these points from personal experience, but seeing the positive effect of community singing in real, concrete terms, from observation, research, and hearing others’ personal experiences, reminded me of its importance.

Professor Howlett and I have decided to continue this project into the 2022-2023 academic year, during which we will conduct more interviews and more research in other fields to find a holistic picture of the power of community singing on well-being.

Summary of our project-CNN approach for NLP analysis over charity groups

From students to working professionals, many people want to address climate change with their career, but do not know where to begin. To help these people understand how they can help, our team – Cherrie Chang, Melisa Calderon and Professor Seidman – constructed the website, Climate Solutions and Climate Careers. Our website consists of two major sections, Climate Solutions and Climate Careers, each presenting an engaging roadmap surveying a part of the current climate change landscape. Climate Solutions overviews a range of practical solutions to climate change, from installing heat pumps in buildings to practicing regenerative agriculture; and Climate Careers details how any working professional can use their existing career to address climate change, and how a student can choose a career that will have an impact on climate. Over this summer, we worked together to design and construct the website so that it is visually inviting, accessible and informative. In addition, we developed a database that organizes climate tech startups by sector, such as renewable energy, transportation, and waste. The database helps people explore what is already being done to combat climate change.

By the end of the project, we developed a beta version of the website and the database. In both its content and its construction, our website was a great opportunity for us to learn about the intersection of technology and environmentalism. In creating it, we ourselves learned how to use our respective skill sets to contribute to the fight against climate change, and we hope our website shows how you can as well. You can visit our website at: https://climatesolutions-careers.org/

This summer, I (Christine Kerrol Chung ’24) worked with Professor Osman Nemli in the Philosophy Department on a project called “Philosophies of Pedagogy”. The purpose of this project was to critically understand the nature of education, including its purpose and execution, before moving on to adapting theory into practice by shaping Professor Nemli’s pedagogy in future classes. 

We began by reading some key writing in the field of pedagogy. Particular attention was given to bell hooks’ “Teaching to Transgress”, Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, and Bettina Love’s “We Want to Do More Than Survive” on engaged pedagogy and abolitionist teaching. We also explored the philosophical origins of education through Plato’s “Laches”, and “Meno”, as well as Jacques Ranciere’s “The Ignorant Schoolmaster”. Through biweekly discussions, Professor Nemli and I became heavily inspired by hooks, Freire, and Love’s abolitionist teaching approach.

I then analyzed Professor Nemli’s past CEQs to look for trends in his pedagogy that can be shaped by our readings. A current finding is that although students become inspired by the material, there is a desire for key concepts to be further fleshed out instead of focusing on individuals.

Applying theory to practice, Professor Nemli and I developed two draft syllabi that considered this feedback and engaged pedagogy. We decentered the cult of the individual from syllabi by structuring the content based on key concepts rather than a canonical figure. This was inspired by Ella Baker’s abolitionist approach to protests. We then created assignments that encouraged students to critically engage with the pedagogy of the class; for example, a peer editing assignment where students can have the space to write about the merits/drawbacks of peer editing. 

Going forward, Professor Nemli and I will co-write a paper on Credentialism in the USA, which is currently in the research stage.

Cyberattacks are becoming a larger part of what all industries, not just financial firms, have to deal with. Cyber risk exposure has an economically and statistically significant negative effect on the stock market performance of affected firms. Additionally, there is evidence of contagion effects: idiosyncratic firm-level cyber risk has the potential of spreading through interconnected financial markets (same country and industry). In 2011, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) released its initial cybersecurity guidance after a spike in cyber attacks, encouraging companies to pay more attention to cyber risks. Together with Professor Savaser, we are working on a project that aims to document and examine the US bank holding companies’ governance strategies to mitigate cyberattacks. The goal is to construct a measure that captures banks’ cybersecurity proactiveness and examine the type of governance structures that are most effective in dealing with a cyber attack.

We approach the question in multiple stages. First, using text analysis, we document how often cyber terms are mentioned in banks’ annual reports and proxy statements. Second, we analyze the context in which the cyber terms were used. Third, we identify which banks mention cyber risk factors in their disclosures before they or their peers experience an attack or before the SEC published its first guidance of the matter, and which banks act retroactively. Lastly, we merge the dataset with the publicly available data on cyber attacks to examine the relationship between the type of governance mechanisms utilized by banks and the frequency of cyberattacks they experience. In the future, we aim to further investigate the topic in the context of non-financial firms.

Building the Museum: Collecting and Displaying Art from the Renaissance to the Present

Bart Thurber, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center & Art Department and Am Chunnananda, Class of 2023

I worked with Professor Bart Thurber this summer to prepare for his spring seminar. The seminar will explore how museums have come to be as they are conceptually and materially—how renovation, reinvention, and, in some cases, demolition, have played a role in their evolutions.

Our first and primary task was to get to know the eleven museums that would be used as case studies throughout the course. Ranging in geography, history, architecture, and design strategies, our list included the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, est. 1764), the Guggenheim (New York City, est. 1937), and the Louvre Abu Dhabi (est. 2017). I located as many digital resources as possible for each institution and immersed myself in them; I navigated museum websites, examined original floor plans, viewed 360 photographs, and read widely to get a detailed sense of each space in context.

This immersion segued into the second objective of our project: to develop materials for the course and flesh out its structure. From my digital explorations, I wrote introductions and curated “resource libraries” for each museum. The latter included webpages, journal articles, photographs, virtual tours, maps, archival documentation, and journalistic accounts. Some of these references will serve as core readings while others will be tools for independent study.

While producing these materials, Professor Thurber and I worked towards distilling a list of shared features of museum institutions, to be used as a framework for comparison throughout the class sessions. We also compiled general issues concerning museums and brainstormed ways in which the Loeb could find its place in the course as a “laboratory” for thinking.

I was glad to have spent time gathering resources, refining ideas, and architecting a learning journey. In many ways, those are the very processes out of which museums come to be.

First draft of a museum profile, one of the course materials Prof. Thurber and I worked on, which combines the introduction and ‘resource library’ of a particular institution. Images used belong to sources cited in the file.