STRATA
STRATA, the STudent Research, Academic, and Talent Archive, is a collection of selected Fort Lewis College student work, including undergraduate research, senior seminar papers, published works, conference presentations, and other creative and artistic projects. Search by name, subject, title, or academic department.
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- Acequia and Pueblo Water Rights Adjudications in Northern New Mexico: Legal Inadequacies and the Benefits of Negotiation
- The State of New Mexico established a water law system based on Prior Appropriation in 1848 through the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This allocation system conflicted with the then current system of Equitable Apportionment. In 1907, the Acequia Act, which created unique bylaws for the Spanish acequia communities, helped to reduce the conflict. Acequias are gravity fed irrigation ditches used primarily by the Spanish population of Northern New Mexico. Further complicating the water adjudication process in New Mexico are the rights of Pueblo Native Americans who possess water rights established in 1693, prior to the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation, the Winter's Doctrine, and the Acequia Act. As water has become more scarce in the region and the development of major water projects, such as the San Juan-Chama Diversion Project, have begun moving water across basins, the need to account for all water rights became a necessary evil for the New Mexico State Office of the Engineer. This report assesses two legal case studies, known as the Aamodt case and the Abeyta case to argue for fundamental changes in the process of water rights adjudications involving Pueblo and acequia communities. Currently, adjudications are settled through litigation. This report argues that water rights adjudications involving Pueblos and acequia communities should be resolved through negotiation, therefore alleviating legal inadequacies, decreasing financial and time costs, protecting the cultural heritage, and playing to such cultural strengths of conflict and resolution.
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- Act IV
- Poem by Benjamin Meckley from Fall 2008 - Winter 2009 issue of Images.
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- Addressing the Jicarilla Apache Housing Crisis: Options for Sustainable Community Development
- The town of Dulce is small community located in Northern New Mexico on the Jicarilla Apache reservation. Although the tribal community is considered reasonably economically developed, there are serious problems within the community that have and continue to negatively affect the quality of life for residents. Although the issues are many, and undoubtedly complex and intertwined, one of the most felt is the severe lack of housing options available to community members and the poor quality of the options that are available. In an attempt to address this problem, the Tribal government has hired a Phoenix-based corporation to build a new housing project from prefabricated components. The design and structure of the new buildings is much like the existing housing developments that have been subsidized by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Although this project helps address the need for more housing options to accommodate the growing population, the execution has not been ideal. The waitlist to be considered for the new housing stretches into the hundreds, and various structural problems have proved to be a problematic from a health and safety perspective. This has resulted in poor quality housing for the growing population that has been fashioned in the same stick-built or "mainstream American" model imposed by the oppressive system during the assimilation period. There is no guarantee that this new development will provide a lasting solution to the quality aspect of the housing crisis because the value systems that promote home maintenance are not transferred along with the structures. This research considers alternative approaches to addressing the housing problem. These can include local building materials, sustainable building practices (such as the strawbale, cordwood, cob, and the earthship model), and utilizing local skilled labor (as a way to provide much needed employment). Evaluating options such as these will help to generate alternative solutions that take into account the local climate and geography and help create a meaningful relationship between the community and their living spaces that relates to traditional housing practices. Creating this connection will hopefully establish a renewed sense of pride in the community and serve as an initiating point for further sustainable community development, which may eventually include alternative energy and local food projects in hope of building a more resilient and less dependent community.
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- Admiring My Father, the Fisherman
- Photograph from Fall 2010 - Winter 2011 issue of Images.
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- Adolescent Susceptibility to Substance Use
- According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) nearly three quarters of students (72%) in America have consumed alcohol by the end of high school and more than one third (37%) have drunk alcohol by eighth grade. SAMHSA reports that 17.4% of adolescents from ages 12-20 years old have self-reported binge drinking (more than five drinks) in the past month. The prevalence of adolescent substance use increases the importance for understanding how substance use affects the brain. This stage in human development consists of significant interrelated changes in cognition, physiological brain development, social influence, and affective changes. Disparity in development between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex renders adolescents susceptible to the rewarding effects of alcohol and marijuana. Although adolescents seem doomed to poor decisions regarding substance use, various protective and preventative factors provide hope.
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- Aesthetic Experiences in Outdoor Experiential Education: Possible Impacts on Leadership Development and Attitudes About Inclusivity.
- Part of the draw of expedition-based experiential education program are the absorbing, powerful moments participants may have in the wilderness. These moments in nature are often called "aesthetic experiences," characterized by total engagement in the present, awe, and conditions of beauty or sensory novelty. Widely described in the literature as experiences which emphasize unity and connectedness, aesthetic experiences may promote inclusive and socially just leadership attitudes in outdoor program participants. These experiences may be of value to educators, but are poorly understood within the field of experiential outdoor education. Studying eleven participants in a college-level Adventure Education semester emphasizing field expeditions, we tracked leadership beliefs and collected aesthetic experiences from participants over a two-month period. Both shifts in leadership beliefs and aesthetic experiences were found, revealing increased belief in socially just concepts of leadership. While a conclusive connection between leadership beliefs and aesthetic experiences was not found, data collected provides insight into program outcomes and has produced a groundwork for further research into aesthetic experience and outdoor education, along with recommendations for outdoor experiential educators interested in promoting aesthetic experiences in their programs.
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- Agapic Dissidence and Political Altruism
- To stand up for what you believe in, and to fight for what you love is the pure essence of being an individual. In the world's largest nation, during its largest social uprising in recent history, a single individual had forever manipulated the fate of his country. This is the role of the dissident, who expresses agapic love. To understand what an agapic dissident is, and how they are capable of bringing such a change, we will look at Thomas Jay Oord and his essay The Love Racket: Defining Love and Agape for the Love-and-Science Research Program, in conjunction with Charles M. Lichenstein's Introduction article to World Affairs Volume 154. It will then be necessary to examine actual, real life instances of agapic dissidence. First and foremost, we will look at the Tiananmen Tank Man, as observed by Pico Iyer, and his essay, The Unknown Rebel. Then we will look at Rosa Parks, and her miniscule actions, which gave rise to large advances for the rights of African Americans. Next, Julia Butterfly Hill "whose ability to live within the confines of a tree, has led to one of the most well-known acts of environmental activism" and her interview with Brian Awehali, will be analyzed. It will then be necessary to look at the outcomes of agapic dissidents within the realms of a population, and conceptualize how political altruism is synthesized and manipulated.
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- Age and Origin of the Mount Sneffels Stock, Western San Juan Mountains, Colorado
- Intermediate to mafic intrusive rocks are exposed in the Mount Sneffels stock in the western San Juan Mountains, Colorado. Debate over the timing of pluton emplacement in previous studies impeded an understanding of how this pluton fit into the regional magmatic history. Detailed field studies revealed that the pluton intruded adjacent Oligocene volcanic rocks of the Southern Rocky Mountain volcanic field. However, a previous K/Ar and fission track age of ~32 Ma suggested that the stock was older than the ~28 Ma volcanic rocks. A new U/Pb zircon age determination constrains the emplacement of this stock to ~27 Ma, resolving the previous age contradiction. This U/Pb zircon age indicates that the Mount Sneffels stock is the oldest Oligocene mafic intrusion in the western San Juan Mountains and was emplaced shortly after the formation of multiple calderas from ~28-27 Ma. This temporal and spatial association with major calderas supports the thesis that mantle-derived basaltic magmas were temporally and genetically related to caldera formation. Isotopic concentrations of 87Sr/86Sr (0.7059) and epsilon Nd (-6.2) are consistent with existing data which suggest that the Mount Sneffels stock was derived from lithospheric mantle melts that interacted with the lower crust. This also supports previously proposed tectonic-magmatic models for magma production of the Southern Rocky Mountain volcanic field during the Oligocene. Continued isotopic and geochronological study of intrusive and extrusive rocks of the region will further constrain the origins of voluminous volcanism in this intracontinental setting, a topic of current petrologic debate.
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- Ahab and Abraham; Whales and Sons
- Separated more by space than by time or breadth of idea, Herman Melville and Søren Kierkegaard worked on opposite ends of the earth. It was the brilliance of both, and their addition to the philosophic, literary, and artistic consciousness of their own and subsequent generations that made them stand out among their age. Though the men grew up in vastly different circumstances and locations, the metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological parallels between them can be seen throughout their bodies of work, most clearly in Melville's landmark Moby Dick, and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (written under the penname Johannes de silentio).
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- All the Women I Ever Wanted to Be
- Artwork from the Fall 2010 - Winter 2011 issue of Images.
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- Almost Me, Now Free
- A non-fiction essay by Sage Grey, published in the Fall 2010/Winter 2011 edition of Images.
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- Alpine Musings
- Poem by Courtney Ott from Fall 2013 - Winter 2014 issue of Images.