The New Deal was one of the largest government programs implemented in the twentieth century. Yet only recently have historians begun to explore the impact of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) on American culture by studying its smaller programs such as the Federal Writer's, Theatre, and Art Projects. This paper explores the life of Caroline Wogan Durieux, a New Orleans artist, WPA Federal Art Project (FAP) administrator, and representative for the United States' State Department, centering upon Durieux's career from 1917 to 1943. Durieux's work with the FAP, and later the State Department, helped to redefine the role of art in American society by making art widely accessible to the public. With her influential connections in New Orleans society and her commitment to public art, Durieux bridged the gap between art for the privileged few and art for the masses.

This study examines the marketing strategies employed by vendors at the Westwego shrimp lot in Westwego, Louisiana. Given the fluctuating market conditions and rising costs of seafood production, seafood vendors in the Gulf Coast region must look continuously for new ways to market their product as a cultural commodity. This thesis argues that shrimp becomes a cultural commodity at the Westwego shrimp lot, and that through marketing strategies, vendors at the Westwego shrimp lot both resist and accept certain aspects of globalization. The presence of imports, a presence that emerges in the context of globalization, poses a large threat to the industry‟s survival. Vendors both consciously and unconsciously market shrimp as food and symbol. An analysis of their efforts may contribute to understanding the process of cultural commodification.

A novel about a man injured while working on an oilrig in the Gulf of Mexico, set primarily in Louisiana, Nevada, and California. While recovering from his injury, the protagonist is contacted by his dead brother’s daughter—a person whom he did not know existed—and he journeys to San Francisco in search of her.

Abstract Federal legislation and educational programs such as No Child Left Behind (2001) and Race to the Top (2009) identify school leaders as one of the major catalysts to improving academic achievement. Increasing accountability demands call for replacement of the principal when adequate gains in student achievement are not met, yet research indicates that it takes at least five years to affect change (Fullan, 2006). Why then would any principal remain in an appointment as principal in a chronically low-performing school? New principals generally stay no more than five to ten years in any one position (Dancy, 2007; NAESP, 1998). In several states, the average tenure rate for a new principal is just 4.5 years (Fuller, 2009). One of the key reasons principals leave is the stress related to the job responsibilities (Groff, 2001; National Association of Elementary School Principals, 2007; Ponder & Crow, 2005). Moreover, principal vacancies are expected to increase vastly within the next three to five years as more than a third of our nation’s teachers and school leaders are ready for retirement(U. S. Department of Education, 2010. With looming principal shortages, regular job turnover, and threat of replacement for current principals, who will lead the nation’s lowest-performing schools and what are the characteristics of those who intentionally seek to do so? The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of four factors associated with Krumboltz’s (1996) social learning theory of career decision making-- (1) personal characteristics, (2) work environment, (3) learning experience, and (4) task skills – on principals’ intent to stay or leave the profession of principalship when employed in a low-performing school. This study used data from 135 school administrators throughout the state of Louisiana who currently serve in schools considered “failing” by state standards in order to answer the following general questions: To what extent do the four factors of Krumboltz’s social learning theory of career decision making (personal characteristics, environment, formal learning experiences and task skills) combine to predict principals’ intent to stay in the role of principal in a low-performing school in Louisiana? What is the relative contribution of each of these factors in predicting principals’ intent to stay? A quantitative, correlational survey design was used to assess the factors that influence principals’ intent to leave or stay in the position of principal in low-performing schools throughout Louisiana. A modified version of the Principal Shortage Survey utilized in a previous study to analyze the principal shortage in Massachusetts (2006) was used. The surveys were administered electronically. Multiple regression was used to analyze results, using SPSS version 19.0. In general, the study supported Krumboltz’s theory, with district training a significant predictor of principal’s intent to stay. Principals who perceived their professional development as most effective were more likely to indicate a desire to remain in the principalship. Implications for accountability, principal training, and leadership in low-performing schools are discussed.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the US prison system was expanding at an unprecedented rate. This research charts how prisoners at the nation’s largest maximum-security prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly referred to as Angola, founded the Angola Special Civics Project to collectively organize for prison reform. Using a combination of oral history and archival research, this thesis argues that the Angola Special Civics Project emerged during an era of political opportunity created by the coupling of political openings and contractions. Unlike outside advocates who focused their reform efforts on internal conditions, the Angola Special Civics Project centering of prisoners’ experiential knowledge led them to organize for an end to life sentencing through a combination of research, political education, electoral organizing, and coalition building. This thesis further asserts that their organizing should be conceptualized as a form of prison abolitionist reforms.

The satellite communications system called the Vessel Management System was used to provide geospatial data on oyster fishing over the nearly 1.7 million acres of the public water bottoms in Louisiana. An algorithm to analyze the data was developed in order to model vessel behaviors including docked, gearing, fishing and traveling. Vessel speeds were calculated via the Haversine formula at small and large intervals and compared to derive a measure of linearity. The algorithm was implemented into software using Python and inserted into a PostgreSQL database supporting geospatial information. Queries were developed to obtain reports on vessel activities and daily effort expended per behavior. ArcGIS was used to display and interpret the patterns produced by the vessel activity, yielding information about fishing activity clusters and effort which implied the location and productiveness of oyster reefs.

Previous research has identified spirituality (Riggins, McNeal, & Herndon, 2008) as an important component of academic success for Black college students. Other factors researched include first year/ freshmen experiences, mentorships, faculty–student engagement (Caboni and Adisu, 2004), rigorous high-school curriculums, and summer bridge programs (Palmer, Moore, Davis, Hilton, 2010). Much of the research on college student success provides a comparison between Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans (Caboni and Adisu, 2004; Carey, 2005; Palmer, Moore, Davis, Hilton, 2010; Townsend, 2007). However, few studies deal with Black students solely, and the influence of spirituality on the academic success within that one population. The lack of existing research on the relationship between spirituality and Black students’ college success, warrants a study that examines the possible ways in which spirituality might influence the academics of Black students (Hill, 2009). This grounded theory investigation examined the relationship between spirituality and the academic success among fifteen Black college students attending three Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Louisiana. Through depth interviews and analysis of resulting transcripts, it was found that spirituality plays a very important, yet indirect role in the academic successes of Black college students attending HBCUs. Three themes emerged: (1) Spirituality and Enduring Life’s Obstacles, (2) Spirituality as an Influence on Personal Transformation, and (3) the Academic Impact of Spirituality. This study helps to highlight a possible resolution to the post-secondary degree disparity seen between Blacks and Whites.

The Great Migration is the largest self-initiated movement of Black Americans in United States history. By leaving behind the rural areas which were familiar but offered little or no opportunities for advancement out of poverty and journeying to major urban centers, Blacks were able to exercise their individual and collective agency. Many thousands of Black Southerners chose to remain below the Mason-Dixon line: the populations of Atlanta, Houston, and New Orleans swelled during the 1910s and through the 1930s, due largely to an influx of Blacks from other areas of the South. These stories often get lost among the millions of other records about migration to the North. New Orleans offered an enticing compromise between remaining in rural poverty and relocating thousands of miles from home: Black Louisianans could stay relatively close to loved ones while gaining new opportunities for employment and economic stability. Furthermore, the city’s vibrancy and reputation for Black solidarity and community support helped draw those who sought to escape the race-based violence of the Jim Crow countryside. Lastly, New Orleans’ Black neighborhoods had always been and continued to act as hotbeds of cultural evolution, and in areas such as the Tremé and Central City, it was easy to find others who shared similar backgrounds and values. Louisiana’s Great Migration helped stimulate Black culture within New Orleans and across the nation.

A combination of in situ sampling and numerical modeling was used to investigate the effects of mesoscale (<50 km) circulation patterns and stratification on the evolution of hypoxia on the Louisiana Shelf. Temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen concentrations records reveal the presence of an alongshelf meander, which is manifested vertically and horizontally as a wave-like distribution of the properties in the water column. The observations suggest the meander is a ubiquitous characteristic of the shelf with alongshore spatial scale approximately 50 km and less, which is consistent with the locations of sandy shoals along the coast and the local deformation radius. Twelve numerical experiments using an idealized three-dimensional shelf circulation model were performed to evaluate the relative importance of the variable bottom topography and freshwater forcing on the development, evolution, and scales of the dynamic instabilities. The inclusion of the shoals into the bottom topography showed the development of the dynamic instabilities as the flow passed over the shoals and downstream. Introduction of fresh water onto the shelf resulted in greater salinity differences, and, as a consequence in the formation of the dynamically unstable salinity fronts along the plume edge. The combination of the freshwater forcing and shoaling topography produced competing and complex interactions. Six numerical experiments were analyzed in order to investigate the effect of dynamic instabilities on spatial and temporal patterns of dissolved oxygen concentrations along the shelf. Although a linear relationship between Brunt-Väisälä frequency and dissolved oxygen deficit was expected, a nonlinear loop-like relationship was discovered that reflects the response of biochemical properties to the alongshelf variability of the density field. Comparison of the numerical modeling runs to observations of density and dissolved oxygen concentrations on the Louisiana Shelf reinforces the importance of physical processes such as topographic steering and/or freshwater forcing on the alongshore distribution of physical and biochemical properties. It suggests that the time scales of respiration (~3 days) and buoyancy transfer processes (~5-7 days), associated with the physical processes that are responsible for water column stability and ventilation, are similar to the time scales associated with the benthic respiration rates.

The Texas-Louisiana Shelf Circulation and Transport Study featured moorings that covered the shelf during 1992 to 1994, and captured the oceanic response on the shelf to category 4 Hurricane Andrew in August of 1992. Eighty-one current meters distributed over 31 moorings along several contours of isobaths provided excellent spatial and temporal coverage over the shelf. The low-frequency variability (2 days and longer) of current observations and tide gauges to the West of the storm are analyzed after the passage of Andrew, focusing on the region outside of direct hurricane forcing. Wavelet analyses are utilized to investigate the dominant periods excited by the storm over the shelf and their temporal evolution after forcing has subsided. Subsequent to the storm's passage, the observations and wavelet transforms show a two-to-four day period coastal trapped wave that propagate westward at speeds near 6 m/s and then around the Texas bend along the bathymetry. The signal remains detectable in observations as far south as Port Isabel, Texas. The prominent frequencies determined from wavelet analysis are compared with predicted coastal trapped wave dispersion modes and show good agreement in the predicted group speed and cross-shelf structure of the first mode. The energies calculated from the data indicate a largely barotropic shelf wave response which is corroborated in the observed currents and by theory.