A decline in high school dropout rates of students with learning disabilities (SWLDs) has been reported in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). Of the2 school districts in the USVI, St. STT/STJ and STX, the researcher examined high school experiences of SWLDs who dropped out and did not attain a high school diploma in STX. Utilizing the conceptual framework of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, participants' personal high school experiences were examined in an effort to understand factors leading to their choice to drop out. The researcher interviewed 12 participants who were drop out SWLDs, ages 18 years and older. Interview data were coded and analyzed for common themes. Member checking and peer debriefing were utilized to achieve credibility and trustworthiness. Data analysis resulted in the identification of patterns, or themes, relative to participants' STX high school experiences which contributed to their decisions to drop out. The themes included, peer, family and teacher lack of support, ridicule, peer pressure and behavior problems. Most of the participants had not reached Maslow's highest need for self-actualization. Maslow purported that if needs are not being fulfilled in homes, then they can be fulfilled in schools where a positive school culture is apparent. In this case, students with learning disabilities needed to feel there was value in their education and obtaining a high school diploma. The results of this research might contribute to positive social change by identifying SWLDs' need requirements to attain a high school diploma and provide high school administrators with valuable information to enhance school learning environments for SWLDs and increase high school SWLD graduation rates.

This thesis examines how digital mediations of art and performances can contribute to shaping new memories and perceptions about the Danish colonization of the U.S. Virgin Islands. By analyzing six pieces of art and performances that engage critically with Danish colonialism and slavery, this study aims to expand the limits of how Danish colonization is traditionally perceived in Danish authoritative representations. Based on theory about visual art, mediatization and digital memory, this study has found that art as an aesthetic tool can revise and challenge traditional ways of engaging with the past and representing it. Art and performances can promote new ways of understanding the complexity of colonialism and bring attention to underrepresented views and voices. Contemporary media plays a key role in how we socially construct memory, as processes of mediatization have changed traditional methods of retrieving and storing knowledge. It is found that digitizing art and publishing it on the archive of the Internet, creates a foundation for potential dialogue, reflection and reconsideration of Denmark’s former role as a colonial power. The Internet allows for access to various, manifold perspectives and memories of the Danish past. Thus digitizing and publishing works of art and performance online, adds a dimension of shaping a ‘social network memory’ where viewers and artists are involved in processes of sharing and reflection that allow for discussions about Denmark’s colonial past.

This dissertation will demonstrate that a variety of Dominican Spanish in contact with St. Thomas English Creole (STTEC) revealed many features which are consistent with Dominican Spanish in other contact environments and some new features which are emerging as the result of uniquely STTEC influences. The most notable feature is the appearance of the vowel [ɛ] in Dominican Spanish, which in STTEC is highly indexical to St. Thomian identity. In the present sociolinguistic analysis, it was found that the variability of [ɛ] was significantly influenced by the following phonological segment, syllable stress, the language of the token, and the speakers’ social network ties and self-ascribed identity. This dissertation also includes a socio-historical background of St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a description of St Thomas English Creole, and a history of immigration patterns of people from the Dominican Republic to St Thomas, U.S.V.I. / Spanish

Historical records suggest that the coastlines of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Sultanate of Oman have been subjected to catastrophic storm and tsunami events throughout recorded history. In 1945, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake -100 km south of Karachi, Pakistan generated a tsunami that impacted the coast of Oman and resulted in over 4000 deaths. Although the 1945 tsunami deposit has been documented, no other paleo-tsunami deposits have been identified despite the fact that historical and paleo-seismic records suggest the contrary. Similarly, the north-eastern islands of the Caribbean, particularly Anegada, BVI, have been subjected to intense hurricane strikes over the past 300 years. Due to its position relative to the Atlantic Ocean and the Puerto Rico Trench, Anegada is a potential recorder of local (e.g. 1690, 1867) and trans-oceanic tsunami events (e.g. 1755 Lisbon) as well. Potential tsunami overwash events at both locations are expected to be intermingled with marine incursions resulting from major storms and Holocene sea level change. Discerning between storm and tsunami overwash is problematic and usually favours a storm interpretation due to their frequency in the geologic record. This bias and lack of properly constrained geologic evidence has hindered the accuracy of tsunami prediction models, and subsequently, the assessment of seismic and tsunami hazards at both locations. Several studies employ the use of foraminifera to distinguish between storm and tsunami deposition; however, they are traditionally conducted in contrasting settings where differences between the terrestrial and marine realms are easily detected. Marine influenced settings lack the same degree of contrast; therefore, microfossil analysis alone is not effective. This dissertation investigates the use of foraminiferal taphonomy as an overwash indicator in two types of coastal settings: 1. a silisiclastic arid system lagoon (Sur, Sultanate of Oman), and 2. semi-tropical carbonate marine ponds (Anegada, British Virgin Islands). Although traditional microfossil taphonomic characteristics have been reported in some overwash studies, no multi-variate investigation into their usefulness as tsunami or storm indicators has previously been conducted. This dissertation shows that the surface condition (e.g. angularity, color, size, fragmentation, etc.) of foraminifera provides important information regarding the origin of overwash deposits and is useful in detecting older deposits at both locations when combined with other proxies. Several important contributions have resulted from this research: 1. Taphofacies analysis helped to constrain sediment provenance and modern nearshore hydrodynamics in an arid system lagoon that could not be achieved with traditional foraminiferal analysis alone. 2. The combined use of foraminiferal provenance and taphonomy was effective in identifying the 1945 Makran Trench tsunami at Sur Lagoon and will be a good indicator of older events at this location; a point which is particularly significant since no geologic evidence of previous tsunami events has ever been recorded. High abundances of predominantly marine taxa coupled with high abundances of large test sizes, fragments and fossil specimens were found to be indicators of tsunami deposition in contrast to lagoon deposition which was characterized by smaller test sizes and less robust lagoon taxa. 3. The preservation of the reefal dwelling Homotrema rubrum, a common encrusting foraminifer in Caribbean reef settings, provided the direction of origin of an overwash event deposited in marine ponds at Anegada and constrained the list of potential overwash candidates. Large and highly preserved Homotrema fragments that are typical of modem reef and storm wrack sediment were found in high abundances within Sand and Shell Sheet in three marine ponds at Anegada. A decrease in the abundance of highly preserved specimens from north to south throughout the ponds, coupled with mollusc taphonomic data strengthens a tsunami interpretation for the deposit. This dissertation shows that taphofacies analysis has broad application to event stratigraphy in a variety of coastal systems. Although the application of taphonomic analysis between the two contrasting environments was widely different, in both cases, taphonomic data provided indicative information regarding the origin of deposition of overwash units at Anegada, BVI and Sur, Sultanate of Oman. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Habitat use of mesophotic coral reefs by sharks is largely unknown. However, it is well established that mesophotic reefs are the site of spawning aggregations for many species of teleost fish. These aggregations represent seasonal concentrations of potential prey biomass that may influence the habitat use of predatory species such as large sharks. I employed acoustic monitoring to examine the movements of three shark species [lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris), tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), and Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi)] to determine 1) the comparative spatiotemporal patterns of mesophotic reef habitat use by the three shark species and 2) the spatiotemporal relationship between these sharks and grouper spawning aggregations at a fish spawning aggregation (FSA) site (Hind Bank and Grammanik Bank) along the southern reef shelf edge off St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands (USVI). Tiger and lemon sharks were detected across nearly the entire acoustic array, which spanned ~ 1060 km2. When present, Caribbean reef sharks used a much smaller activity space, composed exclusively of mesophotic reef habitat located within FSA sites. Individuals from all three species were typically detected for stretches of several consecutive days, while periods without detections usually lasted less than one week. Lemon sharks were present at the FSA site more often during the grouper spawning season (Dec-May) than the non-spawning season (Jun-Nov), but showed no preference toward specific areas within the FSA site, which varied by location and grouper species composition. In contrast, there was no relationship between the presence of tiger and Caribbean reef sharks at the FSA site and the grouper spawning season. My results suggest that despite different habitat use 5 patterns and varying degrees of fidelity, this mesophotic reef serves as an important habitat to all three shark species.

St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, is similar to other tourism dependent Caribbean nations where the tourism industry is dependent upon the `4 S's'- sun, sand, sea, and sex. This researcher posited that the phenomenon of sex tourism exists in St. Thomas as it does in other tourist destinations in the Caribbean like Jamaica, Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Barbados (Bailey and Ricketts, 2003; de Albuquerque, 1998; Munshi, 2006; Ryan and Kinder, 1996). The lacuna of any U.S. Virgin Islands sex tourism literature prompted this researcher to conduct an exploratory case study in St. Thomas to learn whether or not sex tourism exists in the U.S. territory. Using a qualitative approach, this study finds that sex tourism does exist in St. Thomas. This information is pertinent to Conflict Analysis and Resolution because of sex tourism's strong involvement with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS, human rights violations, gender based violence, human trafficking, and other social challenges. Examining sex tourism from three different sources, this researcher uses Human Needs theory and feminism to frame the research. The findings of this study are of interest to academia, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and tourism industries.

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Understanding the movements and behavior of hawksbi1l sea turtles is vital to their protection, but existing data on these subjects are insufficient. The objectives of this study were 1) to monitor internesting movements and surfacing behavior of hawksbill sea turtles nesting at Buck Island Reef National Monument, St. Croix, and 2) to describe post-nesting movements of Buck Island hawksbills. Surfacing behavior and presence or absence of tagged turtles W(> :-t' monitored 24 hr a day by a computerized tracking system using pulse-coded transmitters. Internesting and post-nesting movements were tracked using satellite transmitters on the ARGOS system. No clear trends were apparent in total time spent at the surface. either during an internesting interval or when comparing day and nigh~ behavior; behavior was turtle and interval-specific (n=3). The number of times a turtle surfaced over an internesting interval also varied among turtles, but all turtles surfaced more frequently at the end of an internesting interval (P < 0.05). No differences were found in the number of times turtles surfaced during the day versus night, with the exception of one turtle which surfaced more frequently during the daytime. Comparisons of day and nighttime activity among turtles revealed that surfacing behavior was similar among the turtles studied with the exception of one turtle that spent significantly more time at the surface than the other turtles during both day and night. Internesting movements were found to be extensive for 2 of 3 turtles tracked t with turtles moving from 197 km to 845 km from Buck Island. The third turtle remained within 1 km of Buck Island. Tagged turtles left the Buck Island vicinity immediately after nesting for the season. Two turtles tracked with pulse-coded transmitters through the end of their nesting effort were last heard less than 24 hr after laying their last nest. Satellite tagged turtle T3, tracked for 10 months, traveled between the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico for 3 months, then became resident off the southern coasts of St. Thomas and St. John, USVI. Turtle T3 left this area occasionally on short-duration excursions, but always returned. Satellite tagged turtle T8, tracked for 1.5 months, moved to Puerto Rico immediately after completing nesting for the season, and was subsequently located off the coast of the Dominican Republic t St. Vincent (The Grenadines), and the northern coast of Venezuela. A third turtle (TIl) was located only once after laying her last nest; at the island of Anegada, BVI. Frequent failure to receive locations from satellite transmitters that were known to be attached and functional suggests that turtles may not stay at the surface long enough for transmissions to reach the ARGOS satellites. / Master of Science