Natural recovery is inhibition or moderation of problematic substance use without employing the use of formal addiction services. A neuroanthropological approach to natural recovery highlights the importance of both social and biological aspects of achieving this "self" led process of change. Throughout this project I take a critical anthropological approach to natural recovery, which explores a more holistic conception and historically situated view of current natural recovery theory. This research project employs a neuroanthropological perspective to assess how college students perform natural recovery. Using ethnographic methods, which highlight the social and physical experience of moderation, I discuss how students negotiate pathways for cessation/moderation within the university structure. The university is increasingly a neoliberal space, which influences the way key stakeholders (faculty, staff, and students) perceive and pursue pathways for cessation/moderation. Thus, I found students pursue natural recovery by pulling on recovery capital, facilitated by the university, but outside of traditional cessation pathways, to stop problematic use. Additionally, I employed Bourdieu’s notions of practice and habitus to highlight how students negotiate their lives within this structure and pull on their recovery capital to mitigate cues, proposing a biocultural perspective of natural recovery. The goal of this research is to show how students leverage social relationships and cues in ways that are meaningful to sustaining abstinence/moderation without formal guidance or structure. This work contributes to the small body of literature already established around natural recovery and cue reactivity, and shows how ethnographic methods can and should be applied to both of these fields of research.

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Institutions of higher education have increased their efforts to improve retention and graduation rates by developing support services and programs targeted at specific student populations. The purpose of this descriptive case study was to describe and further understand the perspectives of students and academic coaches/administrators associated with the Academic Coaching and Career Enhancement for Student Success (ACCESS) Program at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida. The program targets students who earned below a 2.0 grade point average (GPA) and were placed on academic probation. Data was collected through one-on-one interviews with previous ACCESS Program students and current ACCESS academic coaches/administrators. A document analysis was also conducted. The guiding research question for this study was: How useful, if at all, did participating students perceive the interventions of the ACCESS Program (e.g., meetings with an academic coach, tutoring, life skills workshops, meeting with a career advisor) in improving their academic performance (e.g., GPA) and why? The study also compared the perceptions of students to those of the ACCESS academic coaches/administrators about the interventions of the program and their usefulness. This study found that students and ACCESS academic coaches/administrators were most likely to find the academic coaching sessions to be the most useful intervention in helping students improve their academic performance and the academic workshops were found to be the least useful. Additionally, while there are elements of the program that can be improved, findings also suggest that those who had a positive overall experience in the program were more likely to perceive the program as useful because of the partnerships formed with their assigned academic coach/administrator/tutor/career counselor; the self-management skills they developed, such as accountability; and the academic and non-academic skills developed, such as improved writing and time management skills. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Looking for ways that dance could be used as a tool for health promotion, I sought to explore dance choreography and performance as an alternative medium for educating and increasing awareness about college student suicide. Suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst college students and while research suggests that suicide is decreasing, in terms of attempted suicides, the problem may be increasing. While attempts to understand, predict and prevent the loss of lives have resulted in extensive literature, there has been very little systematic research completed. Compounded by limited proposed models for addressing college student suicide, and lack of evidence there remains a growing need to find effective health communication practices and best health promotion practices. This research study is an autobiographical case study that explores my embodied experience of choreographing and performing a dance about college student suicide. As a health promotion professional and a trained dance artist, I assumed the role of researcher and dance choreographer and I and my experience became the subject of this research study. I launched and conducted a six-week project on my university campus called "Dance For Life" and worked with a small group of three female undergraduate dancers to make the new dance piece. This dance project was the case under investigation out of which I presented an autobiographical narrative in the findings and discussion section of this paper. Reviewed health information, research findings, and data, as well as knowledge extracted from the dance group became in part material used to make the dance. As the choreographer, my role in the choreographic process spanned from expert to collaborator and rested on my vision for the story told that would be told through the dance. I collected m data in the form of:- video recordings; audio recordings; pictures; journal entries; field/ observational notes; video diaries; drawings; interviews with community-based artists; and memory recall. I then worked to sort, label, group, and analyze the data, piecing together my findings to write an autobiography that answered my research questions. My exploration highlighted the importance of community involvement in community-based health programming.Through participation in this project the dancers\' knowledge and awareness of college student suicide increased and positively affected their empathetic response toward members of the community. Using non professional dancers with varied dance skill levels did not inhibit creativity or diminish the quality of work produced. Instead it brought together real life people with diverse perspectives, creative solutions, and a passion for dance to produce a piece of art effective in its ability to \'touch\' the audience and draw them in to a place of greater awareness. Stigmas, and the lack of  education and visibility about this particular health challenge, have resulted in a low community response to affecting change. The post performance discussion, brought the greatest gains, in terms of educating the audience. They interacted with the project, asked questions, gave feedback and provided comments about what they experienced, learned, and understood. The overall success of the project, points toward the possibility of dance as an art form playing a more significant role in educating communities about sensitive, and difficult to talk about, health challenges. Being able to affect the knowledge, attitudes, and empathetic response of communities is a beginning step  towards overcoming the health challenge of college student suicide. Future research needs to focus on best choreographing techniques as it relates to audience interpretation. / Ph. D.

Adolescence is a time of increased control over food choices and dietary practices. Participating in high school sports or attending college presents unique nutritional concerns and health risks. Some female high school athletes have low energy availability (consuming inadequate calories to compensate for exercise energy expenditure), which can result in menstrual dysfunction, bone loss, and injury, also known as the female athlete triad (Triad). College students who consume diets low in fruits and vegetables and high in fast food are at increased risk for weight gain, chronic disease, and some cancers. Nutrition education interventions that were tailored to the participants' unique nutritional concerns yielded positive results such as increased Triad knowledge among female high school athletes and increased self-efficacy and readiness to change dietary behaviors among college students. Peer-led education was preferred by college students, but not by high school students.

This study investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and selfesteem on undergraduate college students' academic involvement and career preparation. In addition, the effects of emotional intelligence and self-esteem on problem-solving skills and group skills were also examined. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between the different variables. The survey instrument employed had been previously tested and reliability tests were run to ensure alpha levels were appropriate A sample of 292 undergraduate college students voluntarily completed surveys that measured emotional intelligence, self-esteem, academic involvement, group skills, problem-solving skills, and career goals. Data was collected from four different academic institutions in Northern California-two community colleges, and two universities. Consistent with hypotheses, it was found that emotional intelligence and selfesteem were both positively correlated to academic involvement (defined as participation in academic activities) and career preparation (defined as career orientation) .. Both emotional intelligence and self-esteem were significant predictors of academic involvement and career preparation.

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