Tag: Dean

Mary Grace Blaser & Tanner Dean

Non-Religiousness and Compassion: Correlation of the Religiousness Commitment Inventory and the Lovingkindness-Compassion Scale

Mental health has become a more prevalent topic in societal discussions. People are constantly searching for ways to improve their mental health. Religious commitment and lovingkindness-compassion both have a positive correlation to mental health. We wanted to ask the question, is there a correlation between religious commitment and lovingkindness-compassion? We thought that one did not have to have high religious commitment to have lovingkindness-compassion and vice versa. To test this hypothesis, we created a Google form that listed all the statements used in the religious commitment inventory and lovingkindness-compassion scale in which participants rated how true or untrue the statements were to them. After performing a Pearson test on the participant’s scores, the results showed that there is no correlation between religious commitment and lovingkindness-compassion.

COMM 413, Advanced Interpersonal Communication

Doyle Srader

10 AM – Noon

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Tanner Dean

One or Many: Many Short Messages as More Persuasive Over One Fully Explained Message

Loneliness is a silent struggle of many people. Most people are fearful of talking to others, think they do better on their own, or sometimes are just silent when in public spaces. What if there was a way to convince people to go up to strangers? Could loneliness be combated with persuasive appeals? People processes appeals centrally and peripherally, but which one is more effective? Central route processing of messages is taxing. Most people think that they are quite efficient at determining the validity of information. Most of the time people don’t have the mental capacity to think over every bit of information of every argument that is presented to them. That is why people often default to peripheral route processing of information. Many small appeals can be more effective at persuading someone in the long term over a single long detailed message.

COMM 450, Persuasion

Doyle Srader

11:30 AM – Noon

Join the Zoom discussion afterward. The presenter and faculty advisor both have the password.

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Tanner Dean

The Polysemy of “Political”: Shared Senses and Network as a Framework for Dealing with Lexical Ambiguity

Political discourse seems to be fraught with competing definitions for what is and is not “political.” These competing definitions can lead to people checking out from these conversations because there seems to be no overlap of these definitions. Polysemy allows for the examining of the shared network people use for creating these definitions. Etymology and the senses attached to these words are polysemous and connect to these shared networks. These shared networks then allow for people to understand that even though these definitions are different they can have an overarching overlap which can pull people back into conversations regarding “politics” and the “political” instead of leading to confusion over difference. Polysemy has the possibility to enrich our understanding of everyday political discourse.

COMM 499, Capstone

Doyle Srader

1 – 1:30 PM

Join the Zoom discussion afterward. The presenter and faculty advisor both have the password.

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Scholar Lunch

Come to L203 at noon. If you’re one of the first to arrive, you can have free pizza. The meal’s entertainment consists of five minute talks by representatives from majors and minors across campus. Speakers will take a single idea they learned from their major or minor coursework, explain it, explain why it’s useful or beautiful, and explain why they personally love it. Scheduled speakers:

  • Cameron Binaley, History
  • Grayson Rose Carmack, Psychology
  • Tanner Dean, English
  • Miranda Gutierrez, Spanish
  • Bradley Keller, Communication
  • Joshua McCluskey, Biology

L203

Noon – 1 PM

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Tanner Dean

There is no Guru, there is no Mountain:  Beyond the “Ideal Other” and “Utopia” in To the Lighthouse and The Road 

People often flock to “gurus”, or throw themselves into movements, that seem to offer an answer to life’s antagonisms and sufferings. In To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and The Road by Cormac McCarthy there is a subversion that is being done to free the reader from the cycle that is moving from a guru, or movement, to another, in an intellectual sense. People tend to throw themselves to self-help book after self-help book in hope of an answer, but in these novels there is a way to escape the ferry wheel that is certainty and embrace the depth and density of life amidst our struggle. In To the Lighthouse a psychanalytic framework is helpful for braking free from the “ideal other”, or guru. The Road uses imagery of stillness, relationality, and embodiment to show that a utopia cannot ever be possible, yet we should continue into the gray unknown. 

ENG 499, Capstone 

James Watson 

SPS 100 

1 – 1:30 PM 

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