Because of the increasing importance of local government in America's cities, it is worthwhile to note what factors influence the election of our local leaders. This study sought to isolate the communication factors and rhetorical strategies which influenced the election of Mayor Richard Fulton in Nashville's 1975 Mayoral Race. Data was gathered from the written and video media, a private interview with the candidate, and campaign materials. Research also provided the candidate's previous political background. Various factors in Nashville's 1975 Mayoral Race combined to produce an insightful episode in rhetorical and nonrhetorical communication campaign strategies. During the initial stages of the study, emphasis was placed on the rhetorical strategies of candidate Richard Fulton, and to a lesser degree, those of his opponent, Earl Hawkins. As the study progressed, it became increasingly evident that although rhetorical strategies were influential in Fulton's campaign victory, the major reason for his political success could not be totally attributed to his campaign speaking. After acknowledging that fact, a search throughout the available data began to determine what factors were responsible for his ultimate campaign success. It was found that the raising of the candidate's ethos was the most influential campaign factor. Evidence throughout the available data documented over and over again the conclusion that Richard Fulton built an attractive image appealing to Nashville's voters. Fulton's rhetorical content and past experiences served to connunicate this "winning image." It was revealed that: The national and local political situation was favorable to the image which Fulton projected, Fulton's ethos was very high, Fulton's image was the chief factor in this successful campaign, and Fulton's rhetorical strategies were in accord with the majority of Nashville's voters' attitudes. Because specific categories have not been formed by the communication community pertaining to the political candidate's image, this study has been one of discovery and new insight in the area of local politics. A proper rhetorical analysis could not simply proffer an evaluation of traditional aspects of speaking, such as ethos, logos, and pathos. Truly these categories enter the campaign on an important level, but with the increasing role of the media, even in local campaigns, new categories need to be developed and explored. It is the hope of the writer that this particular study will encourage greater interest and future investigations into the local political workings in our cities, particularly those in the South. Why are the Americans of each city choosing their particular leaders? What role is public rhetoric playing in the local choice? How is the media affecting those choices on the local level? Is the American public being "sold" a false image by local politicians due to local advertising, and if so, how might greater public speaking help to dispell these misleading images? These are just a few questions which may stir future interest in pursuing the rhetorical study of our nation's many, local political campaigns and their place in the future development of the contemporary South.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 267-271).

Nashville, Tennessee, is known as the Athens of the South because of its reputation as a center of learning. The city’s commitment to education goes back to the days of its founding as a village on the extreme Western frontier of the United States. In 1785, five years after Nashville was first settled, Davidson Academy, an advanced classical school, was established. At the same time, numerous private schools operated in the Nashville area, providing many of the region’s children with a basic education. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century Nashville moved closer to becoming a major educational center. In 1806 Davidson Academy was rechartered as Cumberland College. Financial problems forced Cumberland College to suspend operation in 1816, but it reopened in 1825 and was rechartered as the University of Nashville the following year. In 1817 the Nashville Female Academy, which by 1860 was the largest and one of the most renowned schools for females in the nation, opened. Other private schools served Nashville as well; most were simple grammar schools that taught the basics, but some advanced schools operated as well. During the 1820s and 1830s, there were some efforts to establish state supported schools for the poor, but they failed because many poor parents refused to send their children to these “pauper’s schools,” as the state supported schools were commonly called. By 1850 Nashville’s educational landscape was on the verge of change. Financial difficulties forced the University of Nashville to close in 1850, but in 1855 it resumed operation after merging with the Western Military Institute and flourished until the Civil War. During the 1850s, the Medical Department of the University of Nashville and Shelby Medical College opened. Both schools enjoyed great success, and by 1860 Nashville was second only to Philadelphia as a center of medical learning. Also, during the 1850s Nashville established a successful system of public schools for all the city’s children. However, the Civil War would interrupt the city’s progress in education. Despite Nashville’s prominence in education, no comprehensive study of the city’s antebellum educational development exists. Based on several primary sources, most of which are available in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, and numerous secondary sources dealing with antebellum Nashville, this thesis represents an attempt to describe antebellum Nashville’s educational development.

With increasing levels of motor vehicle ownership, automobile crashes have become a serious public issue in the U.S. and around the world. Knowing when, where, and how traffic accidents happen is critical in order to ensure road safety and to plan for adequate road infrastructure. There is a rich body of literature pertaining to time-related fatal crashes, most of which focuses on non-spatial factors such as a driver’s visibility at night, drinking and drug use, and road conditions. These studies provide a theoretical basis for understanding the causes of crashes from a non-spatial perspective, and a number of traffic laws and policies consequently have been enacted to minimize the impacts of non-spatial factors. Over the past few years, advances in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have greatly enhanced our ability to analyze traffic accidents from a spatial perspective. This study aims to fill a void in traffic safety studies by comparing and analyzing the differences in the spatial distribution of fatal crashes based on temporal factors, specifically in three periods: 1) day and night; 2) A.M. rush hours and P.M. rush hours; and 3) weekdays and weekends. With the Nashville Metropolitan Area as the study area, the research utilized a number of spatial point-pattern analysis (SPPA) methods, including planar KDE, planar global auto K function, network global cross K functions, and network local cross K functions. All fatal crashes in the Nashville area were found to be clustered and generally follow the patterns of average daily traffic flow. All time-based subtypes of fatal crashes also were found to be concentrated within the central urban area of Nashville, mostly along major roads, and especially near major road intersections and highway interchanges. No notable spatial differences were detected among the subtypes of fatal crashes when applying network global cross K function. However, with the help of the network local cross K function, some localized spatial differences were identified. Some specific locations of hotspots of nighttime and P.M. rush hour fatal crashes were found not to be at the same locations as those at of daytime and A.M. rush hour fatal crashes, respectively. The approach adopted in this study not only provides a new way to analyze spatial distribution of spatial point events such as fatal crashes, but it also can be applied readily to real-world applications. A good understanding of where these spatial differences are should help various agencies practice effective measures and policies in order to improve road conditions, reduce traffic accidents, and ensure road safety.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Religion)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2008. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

This study examines geographic patterns and geographic factors of residential burglary at the Nashville, TN area for a twenty year period at five year interval starting in 1988. The purpose of this study is to identify what geographic factors have impacted on residential burglary rates, and if there were changes in the geographic patterns of residential burglary over the study period. Several criminological theories guide this study, with the most prominent being Social Disorganization Theory and Routine Activities Theory. Both of these theories focus on the relationships of place and crime. A number of spatial analysis methods are hence adopted to analyze residential burglary rates at block group level for each of the study year. Spatial autocorrelation approaches, particularly Global and Local Moran's I statistics, are utilized to detect the hotspots of residential burglary. To understand the underlying geographic factors of residential burglary, both OLS and GWR regression analyses are conducted to examine the relationships between residential burglary rates and various geographic factors, such as Percentages of Minorities, Singles, Vacant Housing Units, Renter Occupied Housing Units, and Persons below Poverty Line. The findings indicate that residential burglaries exhibit clustered patterns by forming various hotspots around the study area, especially in the central city and over time these hotspots tended to move in a northeasterly direction during the study period of 1988-2008. Overall, four of the five geographic factors under examination show positive correlations with the rate of residential burglary at block group level. Percentages of Vacant Housing Units and Persons below Poverty Line (both are indicators of neighbor economic well-being) are the strong indicators of crime, while Percentages of Minorities (ethnic heterogeneity indictor) and Renter Occupied Housing Units (residential turnover indictor) only show modest correlation in a less degree. Counter-intuitively, Percentage of Singles (another indicator of residential turnover) is in fact a deterrent of residential burglary; however, the reason for this deterrence is not entirely clear.

The Nashville Civil Rights Movement was one of the most dynamic local movements of the early 1960s, producing the most capable student leaders of the period 1960 to 1965. Despite such a feat, the historical record has largely overlooked this phenomenon. What circumstances allowed Nashville to produce such a dynamic movement whose youth leadership of John Lewis, Diane Nash, Bernard LaFayette, and James Bevel had no parallel? How was this small cadre able to influence movement developments on local and a national level? In order to address these critical research questions, standard historical methods of inquiry will be employed. These include the use of secondary sources, primarily Civil Rights Movement histories and memoirs, scholarly articles, and dissertations and theses. The primary sources used include public lectures, articles from various periodicals, extant interviews, numerous manuscript collections, and a variety of audio and video recordings. No original interviews were conducted because of the availability of extensive high quality interviews. This dissertation will demonstrate that the Nashville Movement evolved out of the formation of independent Black churches and college that over time became the primary sites of resistance to racial discrimination, starting in the Nineteenth Century. By the late 1950s, Nashville’s Black college attracted the students who became the driving force of a local movement that quickly established itself at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. Nashville’s forefront status was due to an intentional leadership training program based upon nonviolence. As a result of the training, leaders had a profound impact upon nearly every major movement development up to 1965, including the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, the birth of SNCC, the emergence of Black Power, the direction of the SCLC after 1962, the thinking of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Birmingham campaign, and the Selma voting rights campaign. In addition, the Nashville activists helped eliminate fear as an obstacle to Black freedom. These activists also revealed new relationship dynamics between students and adults and merged nonviolent direct action with voter registration, a combination considered incompatible.

The Progressive Era affected the South in different ways from other regions of the United States. Because Southern society was more entrenched in patriarchy and traditional social strictures, Nashville provides an excellent lens in which to assess the vision of a New South city. Known as “Athens of the South,” Nashville legitimized this title with the emergence of several colleges and universities of regional and national prominence in the 1880s and 1890s. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Nashville’s universities solidified their status as reputable institutions, with Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities garnering national prominence. Within Nashville, local colleges, including Ward Belmont College, David Lipscomb University, Peabody College, Roger Williams University, and Meharry Medical College shaped and were shaped by the growing city. Higher education and urbanization created a dialectic that produced a new generation and a new monied class of young adults who thought and acted differently from their parents. Moreover, women became more active participants in public spheres because of opportunities provided by higher education. In most cases, Nashville’s women continued to use their husband’s prominence to earn greater success. In regard to race, the city’s African American colleges helped to produce men and women who formed the backbone of the rising black middle class and elite in the South. Nashville endured great change, formally beginning with the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, whereby the city’s trajectory followed a more modern approach, albeit southern style. Higher education played a large role in the direction of the city, both literally and figuratively. Shifts in attitude toward race, gender, and leisure combined to create a new youth culture. Young women and men socialized on and off campus through a variety of new forms of recreation. The experience of “college life” was more than attending classes but rather a fluid phase beginning with youthfulness and ending with adulthood. Social interaction increasingly became a major component of college life; the city of Nashville simply provided the stage. By U.S. entrance into World War I, Nashville had legitimized its position as a Southern urban center of entertainment and higher education.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Communication, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-105).