The purpose of this study was to: (a) investigate through exploration and inquiry, (b) trace by way of chronology, and (c) report in detail by means of descriptive commentary the history of the New York State Band Directors Association (NYSBDA) from its organization in 1980, up to and including the 30th anniversary of the Annual Symposium in March of 2011. After meticulous analysis of reports, documents and proceedings of the New York State Band Directors Association and organizing the information contained in these sources, the author has articulated in writing the major activities and labors of the organization. The author initiated the study by securing official permission from the 2010-2011 Executive Board of the New York State Band Directors Association. The author then followed the procedure of collecting data by contacting relevant personalities of the Association and requested that: (a) Association documents, (b) meeting minutes, (c) programs, (d) records, and (e) correspondence be transferred for evaluation. By means of thorough review and categorizing of materials a timeline of relevant events that described the formation and advancement of the Association was created. The New York State Band Directors Association was formed to satisfy a specific need for professional growth and support for instrumental music professionals working at all academic levels, public, private and community in New York State. The origin of the Association was in direct relation to the success of a weekend symposium in 1977 designed expressly for band directors. The NYSBDA grew from a small ‘steering committee’ under the leadership of Richard Snook. The group stated its primary purpose to be the improvement and promotion of instrumental music in New York State. Throughout its history, NYSBDA has provided assistance to instrumental music educators and band directors through its many initiatives. NYSBDA provides and exhibits: (a) professional growth opportunities by means of its annual symposium and regional workshops, (b) performance opportunities for instrumental ensembles, (c) potential for student participation in NYSBDA statewide honor bands, (d) instrumental teacher and professional recognition by means of awards, (e) the promotion of new literature by sponsoring and commissioning new band compositions, and (f) cooperation with other state associations. The Executive board and Membership of NYSBDA have demonstrated a commitment to the advancement and improvement of instrumental music and its professionals. This is in agreement and fulfillment with its stated Constitutional objectives. / School of Music

Ecological restoration techniques are increasingly employed along urban stream corridors. In the past, flood-control projects had negative impacts upon our urban streams and many of these streams suffer from degradation. Cardinal Creek, a stream that flows through Ball State University's campus is one such example. With an increase in urbanization, and subsequent loss of habitat, the stream has become nothing more than an open drain, often carrying bacteria that pose a serious health risk. Following a review of stream restoration principles and "aesthetics of care" principles, the application of these ideas is explored. This project will incorporate, both stream restoration principles and "aesthetic of care" principles in order to produce a potentially ecologically healthy and visually appealing community amenity. / Department of Architecture

This thesis has explored the relationship between attitudes toward New York City speech expressed by twelve New York City speakers currently attending Ball State University and values in the speech of these informants of three phonological variables: (1) presence of word final or preconsonantal /r/, (2) height of the midfront vowel /eh/, and (3) height of the midback rounded vowel /oh/. A Likert attitude scale was used to measure attitude. Of thirteen null hypotheses tested, one was rejected. It was therefore concluded that for the sample studied, there is no relationship between attitude toward New York City speech and values of /r/. /eh/, and /oh/.Contrary to reports of other investigators, attitudes toward New York City speech of the sample studied were generally positive. As speech styles increased in formality, however, all of the informants exhibited a tendency, to depart from distinctive, New York City values for /r/, /eh/, and /oh/.

This research describes the social structure of a fundamentalist Baptist Christian School, labeled as First Fundamentalist Baptist School (FFBS). The case study is based on field research extending from August, 1985 through June, 1987. The methodology consisted primarily of qualitative measures: non-participant observation, semi-structured and informal interviews, thematic analysis and historical research. Additionally a brief quantitative survey was given. The methodology's components produce "thick description."The findings place First Fundamentalist Baptist Church (FFBC), the organization which operates the school, in the context of American Protestant fundamentalism. The church and school are shown as representing a separatist fundamentalist category. Discussion of the development of Christian schools in the United States, since the mid-1960's, along with the causes prompting the movement and the specific founding of FFBS embody chapter two. The thematic analysis of FFBS's fundamentalist curricula, based on an inerrant Bible as the pervasive controlling integrator, is the topic of chapter three. Chapter four examines the organization's relationship with the larger society: other churches, public educational authorities, the state and the larger world. Social control mechanisms functioning to reinforce the group's unique subcultural identity are detailed in the fifth chapter.The theoretical premises proposed to explain the FFBS are: 1) fundamentalism is an enduring conservative movement in reaction to modernity; 2) the FFBS-FFBC community is representative of a countercultural subculture; and 3) FFBS is a component of FFBC's sect-like orientation.Fundamentalism, once 'thought doomed to extinction as a result of the forces of modernity, remains a vital movement. Evidence of the movement's strength includes the presence of a conservatively estimated four million fundamentalists, political activism, tele-evangelism and the rise of Christian schools. Modernity, rather than extinguishing fundamentalism, has evoked strong reactions reinforcing the movement. FFBS is a component of these reactions. / Department of History

The New York Public Library's Central Building, constructed just over a century ago, is in the midst of a major renovation. The Library's trustees have asked the architects at Foster + Partners to imagine the space currently occupied by the research collections' closed book stacks as a new, publicly accessible, circulating library. The administration's public relations strategy glosses over the meaning of this architectural reinterpretation, selling the renovation plan with only carefully selected historical facts and opinions that show support for the project. However, this narrative is deceiving; it oversimplifies the issues at stake. Both the broader New York Public Library system and Central Library in particular have an incredibly complex history. The influences that shaped the decision to build the 42nd Street building, its design and construction, and subsequent adaptations over the past century demonstrate an important relationship between the objectives of the institution and the Central Library's architectural form. Therefore, beneath the rhetoric of the renovation, beyond the positive inclusion of a main circulating branch in the central building, lies the decision to remove a large portion of the circulating collection from the center of the stronghold built to house it. This decision undermines the unique structure of the New York Public Library as one of the world's premier research institutions, removing the heart of the building.

The subject of this thesis is an American Zen monastery in New York, Zen Mountain Monastery (ZMM). The study is approached through a survey of methodologies: (1) through the scholarship on American culture and religion, (2) through the sociology of the study of religious institutions and communities and (3) through a comparison with East Asian Zen monasticism. The study reveals that ZMM's monasticism: (1) is part of a systematization of Zen in America that has made Zen into a mainstream option in American society, (2) has created group practices and commitment mechanisms that put ZMM in a better position than American lay Zen centers to challenge the individualist trends of American society and spirituality and (3) is based on a conception of the self more in line with the individualism of American society than the asceticism of East Asian Zen monasticism.

No description available.

This research was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of two different types of alcohol education interventions on the attitudes about alcohol consumption in college, knowledge about alcohol, and self-reported alcohol consumption behavior of college students. The educational interventions were a student-centered CD-Rom interactive program, and a teacher-centered motivational speaker. Each intervention took approximately 60 minutes. The research was conducted at a small public university in Northern New York. Nine classes with a total enrollment of 360 students were randomly selected for the research. The demographic makeup of the sample was similar to that of the overall university population, including gender, class level, membership in Greek organizations and age. Three classes were randomly assigned to the CD-Rom program, three classes were randomly assigned to hear a motivational speaker, and three classes were randomly assigned to a control group. The instrument used was the Student Alcohol Questionnaire (SAQ). Students in all classes completed the SAQ four weeks after the Fall, 1999 semester began. The interventions were conducted the following week. The SAQ was administered again four, eight and twelve weeks post-intervention. Two measures of alcohol consumption behavior were used: A continuous variable measure of both amount of alcohol consumed and consequences related to intoxication, and a dichotomous variable for "heavy drinking," which is defined as more than five drinks in a row at least once a week. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to test for differences across attitude, knowledge and behavior and bivariate combinations of these outcome variables by group. No statistically significant differences were found on any of the post-interventions measures for any combination of aftitude, knowledge or behavior. Analysis of covariance was used to test for behavior difference alone, using the pre-intervention questionnaire results as the covariate. No statistically significant differences were found for behavior alone. Multiple regression techniques were used to determine if alcohol consumption behavior, as measured on the continuous scale, could be predicted by gender, grade point average, class level or religion. Gender (p .000) was the only predictor variable that was statistically significant, with men students consuming more alcohol than women students. / Graduation date: 2000

Thesis (D. Min.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1987. / Typescript (photocopy).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Duke University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.