Freshman Year Of College Research Articles

Mary Crow: leader in research on systemic lupus erythematosus

Mary “Peggy” Crow was not one of those people who always wanted to be a doctor. “I absolutely was not on a track toward either medicine or research”, Crow, Physician-in-Chief at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), New York City, USA, and a past President of the American College of Rheumatology, told The Lancet. She took biology in 7th grade and loved it, Crow says, but at her private high school in Westchester County, NY, girls didn't get to take science—she “was not even offered science courses”, recalls Crow. In her freshman year of college, she won the school's biology prize, “which kind of shook me up”, says Crow, now a Co-Director of the Mary Kirkland Center for Lupus Research at HSS and Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Weill Cornell Medical College. She began to think, “maybe this is something that I could be good at”. Lupus research centre fosters collaborationThe Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), New York, USA, has been a leader for decades in the study and treatment of rheumatological diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis. Full-Text PDF

Freshman year alcohol and marijuana use prospectively predict time to college graduation and subsequent adult roles and independence

ABSTRACTObjective: This study examined how freshman year substance use prospectively predicted time to college graduation, and whether delayed graduation predicted postponed adoption of adult roles and future substance use. Participants: Participants were part of a longitudinal study that began in 2004. The first analyses focused on freshman year (N = 2,050). The second analyses corresponded to a subset of participants at age 27 (N = 575). Methods: Measures included self-reported substance use, adult role adoption, and university reported graduation dates. Results: Results indicated that frequent binge drinking and marijuana use during freshman year predicted delayed college graduation. Those who took longer to graduate were more likely to have lower incomes and were less likely to obtain a graduate degree. Taking 5–6 years to graduate was associated with greater likelihood of alcohol-related problems. Conclusions: Findings support the importance of interventions during freshman year of college to decrease substance use and promote timely graduation.

Foundation News

SEG has a longstanding commitment to inspiring the geophysicists of tomorrow through SEG Foundation-funded programs designed to prepare today's geophysics students to be members of tomorrow's professional workforce. A full slate of programs helps engage students as early as their freshman year in college all the way through advanced study at the PhD level. By providing support for membership in an SEG Student Chapter, funding for field camps and scholarships, and participation in flagship leadership and industry training programs, SEG is committed to investing in the future of geophysics with its student programs.

Collaborative Learning and Critical Thinking: Testing the Link

ABSTRACTIn this study, we investigated whether exposure to collaborative-learning activities during the 1st year of college influences the development of critical-thinking skills. To explore this issue, we analyzed longitudinal data from 1,455 freshmen at 19 institutions throughout the United States. With statistical controls in place for a host of potential confounders, including a parallel pretest critical-thinking measure, we found that exposure to collaborative-learning activities was associated with gains in critical thinking at the end of the freshman year of college, but only for White students and those who were the least well prepared academically for college. Lastly, the results of a 3-way interaction suggested that exposure to collaborative learning among Whites who also have relatively low levels of tested precollege academic preparation is positively associated with gains in critical-thinking skills.

2016–17 Project SEED Scholars

The American Chemical Society Committee on Project SEED has announced the winners of its 2016–17 college scholarships. The recipients, who were selected from participants in ACS’s Project SEED research program, received one-year nonrenewable scholarships of up to $5,000 to help cover tuition and fees during their freshman year of college. The 31 scholarships for the 2016–17 academic year, which have a total value of $155,000, were funded by private corporations and individual donors. Additionally, three Project SEED college scholars received the Ciba Specialty Chemicals Scholarship. Project SEED is ACS’s summer research program that enables economically disadvantaged high school students to conduct hands-on research. For more information, visit www.acs.org/projectseed. Alfred & Isabel Bader Scholars Alfred Bader is one of the founders of Aldrich Chemical, now Sigma-Aldrich. The Baders supported Project SEED for many years and contributed to the initiation of the Summer II SEED program. Alicia Ball is a gr...

Magazines and the Making of America: Modernization, Community, and Print Culture, 1741–1860

Someone could go a long way toward telling the story of my life through its magazines: the Highlights my parents gave me, determined that my small self should be as entertained and enlightened as possible; my grandparents’ neatly collected Readers’ Digests, which I eagerly read until learning my freshman year in college that they were hopelessly bourgeois; the New Yorkers I loved and displayed in my graduate student apartment, the Vanity Fairs I loved and hid under the bed. Magazines tell the story of who I was supposed to be and who I wanted to be. Or perhaps they don't; how much of what the magazines meant to me is visible in the historical record? I didn't purchase all that I read, after all, nor did I read all that I purchased. A magazine I loved one year might embarrass me the next, and then find its way back into favor, my subscription all the while remaining unchanged. Magazines, in short, are both perplexing and promising subjects of analysis, with the question of how they create communities of readers posing perhaps the most promising and perplexing question of all.

Does Social Support Buffer the Association Between Stress Eating and Weight Gain During the Transition to College? Differences by Gender.

This study sought to examine whether social support moderates the relationship between stress eating and body mass index (BMI) change over the freshman year in males and females. This longitudinal study included 70 college students (72.9% female; M age = 18.23) who completed self-reported measures of stress eating and perceived social support, with objective height and weight measurements collected. Among males, social support moderated the relationship between stress eating and BMI change. Among males, social support may serve as a buffer against the impact of stress eating on weight gain during the freshman year of college.

Early alcohol use and psychopathological symptoms in university students.

Adolescent brain may be particularly vulnerable to alcohol.  Plus, psychopathological disorders tend to emerge in this period. Consequently, early alcohol use may increase the risk of psychopathological disorders, with time and sex-dependent effects. However, few studies have analyzed the relationship between alcohol consumption and adolescent psychopathology in the general population. The objective was to determine the association between age of onset of alcohol use and psychopathological symptoms in university students, separately for both sexes. A cross-sectional study involving first-year university students (n = 3,696) was conducted. Symptoms were measured by the Symptom Checklist-R (SCL-90-R). The independent variable was age of first alcohol use. Dependent variables were the SCL-90-R dimensions, dichotomized. Alcohol consumption was considered a mediator variable. Data were analyzed separately for males and females. The findings showed that a younger age of onset is a risk factor for the following global indexes: Global Severity Index, Positive Symptom Total for females, and Positive Symptom Distress Index, for males. Alcohol consumption showed a higher mediator effect for females than for males. Early age of alcohol use is associated with increased psychopathological symptomatology in both sexes during the college freshman year. The pattern of symptomatology is different in each sex.

Should All Deaf Children Learn Sign Language?

Should All Deaf Children Learn Sign Language?

Line 2: Faces

Line 2: Faces Terrance Hayes (bio) During the first weeks of my freshman year in college, I shared some of what looked like poems with my new English professor, Dr. John Thatcher French. It was the only way I could think of impressing him. My teammates—I was on a basketball scholarship—warned me he was a hard ass. He’d failed students for as little as a comma splice, they said. He’d been a naval intelligence officer during the Vietnam War, he was a horse trainer, a Faulkner scholar, a chain smoker, and lapsed Yankee. Dark haired and square jawed with an abrupt baritone, he had the look and bearing of R. Lee Ermey, the actor who played the infamous drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. I don’t remember an especially enthusiastic response when I showed Dr. French my poems, but when a poet named Fran Quinn visited campus that October, he set up a poetry conference for the two of us. It was the first time I met someone who lived as a poet. I knew poets roamed the earth. I’d heard rumors, growing up, that the poet James Dickey ran fat, drunk, and naked through some woods not far from my house, but I never saw him or met anyone who saw him. And in any case, no one I knew would have been impressed to meet a poet. No one in my family knew I was writing poems. I didn’t know what to make of Fran Quinn. He was probably in his forties at the time. In the light of certain memories his hair was silvery blonde, other times I remember it as a yellowish silver; he had a round face with a mild bewildered look or he had a saggy face with a quizzical sadness. It may have been the blue baseball cap he wore that skewed his age and demeanor. He didn’t seem especially poetic. He wasn’t Beatnikish, professorial, or hung over. We sat alone in Dr. French’s office. Dr. French had smoked probably three cartons of cigarettes a day over a span of twenty years in that office. Fran Quinn shuffled through a stack of fifty or so pages bound by a large binder clip, reading his poems to me. He shared his own work perhaps as a way to disarm me, but it didn’t comfort me. I thought it was strange that he didn’t have a book. I showed him the best of my altogether terrible poems. He must have offered encouragement. Quinn asked if I’d heard of Robert Bly. I hadn’t. I told him I liked Gwendolyn Brooks. I asked what he thought of James Dickey. Not much. While Quinn spoke—maybe he was talking about Robert Bly again—I scanned Dr. French’s wall of books. As best as I could tell, the measure of an educated man was what he’d read, not what he’d written. French had read all of William Faulkner plus lots of books about Faulkner; all of Mark Twain plus lots of books about Twain; most of Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne: dead white writers. He taught what he knew to us. Once in the middle of reading Molly Bloom’s sprawling soliloquy in Ulysses, he began to weep right there in front of our class. That’s still among the most shocking and lovely moments in all of my college education. Another time in [End Page 811] my sophomore or junior year, when he was too hung over to teach a chapter of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, he lay his rumpled head down on his desk and asked me to teach it. I don’t know that I would call the moment a boy decides he will become a teacher a coming of age story. There’s no drama to it. I was the first in my family, the first of all my grandmother’s children and grandchildren to go to college. I did not go into the army as both my father and stepfather had. I was tall enough to get a basketball scholarship to a small liberal arts college surrounded by...

Adelina

Adelina Rigoberto González (bio) The summer after we moved in with my grandparents, the idea was born to bring back "una muchacha"—a young woman—from Mexico. The purpose was to find a caretaker for my father, recently widowed, and a nanny for my brother and me, recently orphaned at ages ten and twelve. Abuela, the only female in the small two-bedroom cinderblock apartment, had become exhausted managing a household that had doubled overnight. It seemed like a good solution though I couldn't imagine where they were thinking of housing this seventh body. My grandparents slept in one bedroom, and my father, brother, and my bachelor uncle slept in the other. I slept on the couch in the tiny living room. This didn't bother me much because I had never had my own bed (that wouldn't happen until my freshman year in college), and sleeping in the apartment's most open space gave me the impression I had a room of my own or at the very least a place to breathe, to daydream, and to cry in complete privacy when I remembered my mother. When I couldn't sleep I'd simply pull a chair into the tiny kitchen and read under its dim light, the only light that didn't bother Abuelo, who always kept his bedroom door ajar in order to keep track of our movements. In any case, I didn't dare ask the obvious questions: Where would she sleep? Would I have to give up my couch? The plan wasn't discussed with me, but I picked up snippets of conversation over time. Since I was a reader, I became invisible behind a book, and somehow my grandparents thought I also became deaf because they would speak frankly in front of me about subjects that would make them hush whenever anyone else walked in. "She won't be expensive," Abuelo assured Abuela, who nodded in agreement. The long pause that followed made me wonder where their minds had drifted. Perhaps to the convenience of the situation: that a young woman from Mexico would be easy to control, perhaps even easy to take advantage of. [End Page 21] I couldn't imagine what young woman would accept such a position, traveling so far away just to live with a family of farmworkers in a compact unit of southern California housing projects. I had seen a few Mexican films that touched on the subject of poor young women who left their small villages for an opportunity to thrive, but in all cases, they went to live in big-city apartments or suburban homes owned by lawyers, doctors, or businessmen. But in the film narratives, the poor young women didn't have to leave the country. It dawned on me then why this was an especially important detail: the young woman we'd be bringing back would be undocumented, making her even more vulnerable. Locating a coyote who could smuggle a young woman across was a relatively easy search. We lived a few hours from the border. Over the years reports traveled through the streets about so-and-so's cousin or so-and-so's nephew arriving safely, and the community took note of the coyote's reputation and his contact information to pass along in the most clandestine of referrals. Crossing her over was not the problem. Finding her, that was the sticking point. Or so I thought. Every summer my grandparents traveled to Michoacán, Abuelo behind the wheel of his truck, annoyed and exasperated after the first day on the road. I had made the trip a few times before so I knew the code of conduct in the camper. Basically, become invisible, inaudible—something I was very good at around Abuelo, who snapped at the smallest things. He held a particular dislike for my brother, who hadn't learned to be silent. Given a choice, Alex would not have joined us on that trip, but he didn't have a choice. Not anymore. As soon as my father moved us into our grandparents' domain we were expected to surrender completely. So there we were the following July, lying...

Leaping into the unknown.

Passion is not something you can plan for. When I was in elementary school and someone would ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I would shout something along the lines of “a pirate astronaut” or “a Tyrannosaurus rex ” because those were the things that piqued my interest at the time. As I've aged my passions have changed, and though sometimes I still think it would be fun to be a pirate astronaut, these days I aspire to a career in neuroscience. But it hasn't been a direct path, and changing fields during my training, though challenging, has provided a valuable perspective that has improved my research and, I believe, will continue to serve me well throughout my career. ![Figure][1] ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER > “Being a researcher, no matter the field, is about adaptation.” By the end of my senior year of high school, I knew only that I was more fascinated by the natural world than by business or politics. That was all. But 3 weeks prior to the start of my freshman year of college, I took an elective course in biological anthropology. I became fascinated with human variation; ancient hominid fossils; and the behavior of our closest living relatives, the great apes, and ended up earning a degree in anthropology. For my undergraduate thesis, I investigated differences in circulating hormones between musicians and nonmusicians and how musical ability might be related to differences in physiology. After this experience, I felt the itch to look deeper into the molecular and cellular mechanisms of behavior. The next step, I decided, was graduate school in neuroscience—a subject in which I had not taken a single course. Quite a pickle I'd gotten myself into! How was I going to make the jump into this new field? I wrote my graduate school applications to showcase how I had arrived at the decision to pursue neuroscience research without a neuroscience background and my genuine interest in the mechanisms of behavior. I emphasized that I was trained in how to think about complex subjects and use the scientific method—skills I could apply to any topic. To improve my chances, I applied broadly to programs with an emphasis on behavior: anthropology, psychology, and—as a reachȁneuroscience. To my relief, it worked! After a gap year spent as the assistant project director for a chimpanzee field site for ecological research in western Uganda, I began graduate school in my first-choice neuroscience program. Since entering my new field 3 years ago, I've found that a key obstacle to overcome is the lingo. Few things in academia are scarier than walking into a room, listening to a lecture, and having absolutely no idea what just transpired. Early on, I would break out into cold sweats at the thought of having a neuroscience-based conversation. I had to quickly pick up on words like “orthodromic” and “deacetylation” to communicate with my peers. My anthropologist self had to adjust to my new intellectual environment, which I did by reading—a lot. A cycle emerged: A feeling of severe stupidity would be followed by intense reading, followed by another period of feeling stupid as I realized that, no matter how much I read, new gaps in knowledge would keep popping up. Even now that I feel relatively comfortable identifying myself as a neuroscientist, that cycle continues. Finding my way in a new discipline helped me realize that being a researcher, no matter the field, is about adaptation. Good scientists need to be able to recognize imminent paradigm shifts and adjust hypo theses accordingly. They should be prepared to explore new experimental approaches when original tactics don't work. And they should be comfortable examining questions from alternative angles, as sometimes the best way to tackle a problem may be hidden in an unfamiliar area. Because of my experience changing fields, I feel equipped to do all of these things, and although it was scary and difficult at times, I believe the experience will make me a better scientist in the long run. I anticipate that my passion will shift again as new discoveries are made. Overcoming the challenge of transitioning fields in graduate school has prepared me for whatever direction my research takes me. [1]: pending:yes

Online Patient Information From Radiation Oncology Departments May Be too Complex for the General Population

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the readability of online patient information (OPI) from academic radiation oncology program websites from across the United States. The National Institute of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services have recommended that educational materials provided to patients be written at a sixth grade reading level to facilitate broad comprehension. We tested the hypothesis that OPI from Radiation Oncology program websites would be appropriately written at the 6th grade level. We utilized the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) website to identify every academic radiation oncology program within the US and their respective websites. We collected general OPI with a focus on external beam radiation therapy from one-third of all programs. Programs were randomly selected with a random number generator. We performed a readability analysis using 10 commonly used readability assessments: Raygor Readability Estimate, Fry Score, New Dale-Chall Test, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Flesh Reading Ease Score, Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, Gunning Frequency of Gobbledygook (Fog), Coleman-Liau index, FORCAST test, and New Fog Count. A composite measure of grade level readability was constructed using the eight readability measures that provide grade level as an output. Ninety academic radiation oncology department websites were identified. Thirty websites were randomly selected and had OPI collected and put through readability analysis. The mean number of words analyzed was 5 604 (range 2 058 – 12 837). The measures of readability were highly intercorrelated, ranging from r = 0.68 to 0.99, and they formed a highly reliable scale (SI alpha = 0.98). The composite grade level readability of OPI collected was 13.36 (95% CI: 12.83 – 13.89), corresponding to freshman year in college. This was significantly greater than the target sixth grade level (t (29) = 27.41, P<.001). The Flesh Reading Ease mean score (higher score = easier to read) for all programs was 37 (range 16-55), with a score of 60-70 being understood by an average 13-15 year old. Online patient educational material found on academic radiation oncology websites is written on average at the first year collegiate level, significantly above nationally recommended guidelines. Simplification of the language in online educational materials may facilitate improved comprehension by patients.

My Rock: Black Women Attending Graduate School at a Southern Predominantly White University

Participants in this phenomenological study were 11 Black women who received an undergraduate degree from a historically Black college or university and were currently attending graduate school at a southern predominantly White university. This study investigated the adjustment experiences of these women to life on a southern predominantly White campus. Through analysis of participant interview transcripts and demographic questionnaires, support systems emerged as a critical factor in each student's experience, with themes focused on mentors, family and friends, and romantic relationships. Keywords: Black, adjustment, graduate school ********** A research participant interviewed for this study, a 4th year doctoral student in a social sciences field, commented about her friend, another doctoral student, and her experience at a southern predominantly White university (PWU): She has had a difficult time because she's in [program name] and she's the only Black student over there now. And she's in a master's-to-PhD program so that's extra hard. And she's faced with a lot of adversity ... she doesn't have support from her supervisors over there. They've made racial comments ... and with being a minority [Black and female], you're already still kind of outcast to begin with in a predominantly White, good-old-boys institution. A lot of the literature discusses how support systems affect Black college students' adjustment experiences at PWUs (Cabrera, Nora, Terenzini, Pascarella & Hagedorn, 1999; Guiffrida & Douthit, 2010; Schwartz, Bower, Rice, & Washington, 2003), but most research is limited to undergraduate education. Specifically, an inadequate amount of research exists on Black women's experiences attending graduate school, particularly at PWUs. Researchers have revealed conflicting data regarding the impact of support systems on the retention of Black students attending PWUs. Nettles and Millett (2006) stated that there is a direct correlation between the constructive impact of socialization and the performance, contentment, and achievement of Black graduate students who are in doctoral programs where Blacks are underrepresented. Furthermore, Nettles and Millett found that the retention rates for Blacks transitioning from undergraduate to graduate studies dropped 50% more than the rates of their Asian peers and 75% more than the rates of their White peers, Tinto (1993) posited that most successful college students become better integrated into the college social and academic environment if they are able to detach themselves from support systems such as family and friends. Conversely, Guiffrida (2005) disclosed findings that suggested that high-achieving Black students attending PWUs were successful because of the emotional, academic, and financial support shown to them by their families. Guiffrida (2005) also reported that Black students' families often encouraged them to concentrate on staying in college, rather than coming home, even if families were in need of the students' financial support. Moreover, Guiffrida (2004) asserted that friends from home were an asset for Black students attending PWUs, especially when they were able to relate common experiences and provide needed emotional support. Seymour and Hewitt (1997) conducted a study in which Black preengineering majors at a PWU were connected with a faculty mentor, who was available for all activities, during their freshman year of college. Not only did these students successfully complete their freshman year, but they continued their enrollment in the college of engineering and graduated with an engineering degree (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). E. P. Smith and Davidson (1992) asserted that Black master's and doctoral students with mentors were more likely to succeed than their Black counterparts without mentors. Therefore, the support of mentors has played a pivotal role in the success of Black college students attending PWUs. …

How The Apostle Gets Religion

How The Apostle Gets Religion Patton Dodd Not long ago, my eleven‐year‐old daughter stepped into our living room just as I was starting to watch The Apostle, Robert Duvall's 1997 film about a Pentecostal minister gone bad. She huffed a bit—Dad was about to watch something boring—but stuck around, then stuck around some more, her eyes glued to what was rolling forth from the screen: tent revival preaching, charismatic dancing, holy rolling worship, whooping for Jesus, and, in one moment, a bit of angry fist‐shaking at God. My daughter was fascinated. She was curious. She was, to be sure, a touch disturbed. What is this? Who are these people? What are they doing? Why are they doing that? I hushed her—not just because movie talkers are annoying, but also because the answers to those questions don't come easy. Watching Pentecostal Christians worship is a bit strange if you've never seen them do it before, and The Apostle—as I'm about to argue—plays Pentecostal worship incredibly straight. So it was not surprising when my daughter's questions were still with her the next day as we were in the car running errands. That movie you were watching yesterday? What were those people doing? Is that church? Do they think that's worshipping God? Is that worshipping God? Why do they think that's worshipping God? How can chanting “Jesus” over and over be worshipping God? Especially in the movie's first twenty minutes or so, she had seen a lot of praise jigs, a lot of pulpit stomping and shouting, and for a girl whose main exposure to church has been mild evangelical and mainline Protestant settings, well, the churches of The Apostle might as well have been from a different religion entirely. I assured her that this, too, was Christianity. This was one approach to the faith. It was, in fact, a hugely popular approach. Once upon a time, it was her dad's approach. The first time I saw The Apostle was soon after its release in October 1997. I was in college, and I dragged some friends with me to the theater—the operative word being “dragged,” since my pals were not at all inclined to see a quiet, personal film about an aged Pentecostal preacher. Gattaca was playing that month, as was Boogie Nights, and if we had to have some religion in our weekend movie, The Devil's Advocate was in theaters, too, featuring a hammy Al Pacino and a naked Charlize Theron. But I had been waiting for The Apostle for months. In my freshman year of college, I had dipped deep into the waters of Pentecostalism myself, and while I wanted to be done with my past, the past wasn't done with me. I was, in fact, rather obsessed with what had happened to me—speaking in tongues, dancing in the Holy Spirit, trying to exorcize demons. The trailers for The Apostle had delivered the impression that director and star Robert Duvall were genuinely obsessed with all this, too, and I saw in those trailers a kind of mirror, one I wanted to study. The Apostle is the story of Euliss “Sonny” Dewey, a Pentecostal Christian minister in southeastern Texas who becomes a fugitive from justice after he maims his wife's lover in a moment of drunken rage. Sonny flees town the afternoon of his crime, sinks his car in a pond, re‐baptizes himself in another pond, and emerges with a new spiritual identity and purpose. Christening himself “The Apostle E.F.,” Sonny establishes a makeshift church in Bayou Boutte, Louisiana. Sonny's new town takes to him almost immediately, and the bulk of The Apostle documents his short‐lived—but, we are meant to believe, quite genuine—ministry success among the people of Bayou Boutte during the few months it takes for the police to locate and arrest him. The Apostle is clearly a fictional film, but its overall mise en scene—its visual and auditory aesthetic from beginning to end—is a fiction/nonfiction mashup. The film's central conceit is not the idea of a fugitive minister...

Evaluating patterns of weight and body composition change among college women

The prevalence of obesity increases as women move from adolescence to young adulthood, and college women have been identified as a population at risk for unhealthy weight gain. Studies of weight gain in college populations have revealed that significant, variable weight change occurs in as few as eight weeks, but few have included participants beyond their freshman year of college or assessed body composition. The aims of the study were to use a repeated measures design to identify patterns of weight change among college women at all grade levels and to evaluate factors that may predict weight change over a one-year period. Undergraduate college women (N=131) completed measures of physical activity, dietary restraint, living conditions, and body dissatisfaction at baseline, 6-months, and 12-months. Height, weight, and body composition were collected at all assessment periods. Forty-four percent of participants gained at least 3lb, 23% lost at least 3lb, and 33% maintained weight over one year. Weight change was associated with changes in body fat and was not related to baseline BMI or age. There were no significant differences between grade levels, suggesting that future studies should include women at all grade levels. Baseline physical activity, dietary restraint, living conditions, and body dissatisfaction did not predict weight change at one year, nor did they differentiate between individuals in the three weight change categories. Further research is needed to identify the factors associated with weight gain in young adult women, and such studies should not be limited to college freshmen.

A Statistical Analysis of Weight Gain During the Freshman Year of College

This study examined freshman weight gain and its contributing factors, with the objective being to determine what environmental and societal changes in the college freshman experience associate with weight gain. We designed a 27-question survey which asked participants about their lifestyles during their freshman year in college. Responses were obtained through social media from 95 student participants across 37 United States colleges and universities. The resulting data distribution of weight gained among surveyed freshmen was right-skewed with a median weight gain of zero and an interquartile range of 6.5 lbs. In particular, 52% of the survey respondents reported no weight gain. Accordingly, we modeled the data via a zero-inflated negative binomial regression analysis to investigate what student characteristics prior to and during his/her freshman year are associated with weight gain and likewise determine an estimated probability of no weight gain in the freshman year. Our study and statistical model found significant associations between freshman weight gain and the choice of major, average amount of nightly sleep, one’s relationship with his/her parents, and gender.

ERPs to Alcohol Images among Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Female College Freshmen

Research suggests that young women, particularly Latinas, may be at risk for problem drinking during the home-to-college transition. In this study, we used ERP cue-reactivity to explore physiological correlates of alcohol use and expectancies across the freshman year in Hispanic (H) and Non-Hispanic White (N-H) women. In the fall (t1) and spring (t2) semesters of their freshman year of college, 40 women (16 H) reported alcohol use and expectancies. At each session, N200 and P300 ERPs were elicited by two oddball tasks (counterbalanced within session): 1) to detect alcohol targets while ignoring control items (household object distracters) and frequently presented nonsense shapes and 2) to detect object targets while ignoring alcohol distracters and nonsense shapes. P300 amplitude was larger for targets (versus non-targets) and for alcohol images (versus control images), but did not change over time or differ by ethnicity. P300 latency results included time x target and ethnicity x target interactions. Latency differences for target images were attenuated at t2, and N-Hs were more reactive to stimuli classed as targets regardless of whether these depicted alcohol or control images. N200s had higher amplitude and longer latency at t2, suggesting a change with acclimation to the college setting, but did not differ by target status, image type or ethnic group. P300 latency was positively correlated with the personalismo subscale of acculturation indicating that individuals with more social, people-oriented personalities were more distracted by alcohol images when they appeared as non-targets. N200 amplitude was correlated with positive alcohol expectancies, and this pattern changed over time (t1 versus t2), suggesting subtle, expectancy-related changes in alcohol processing as students acclimated to the college setting. Taken together, these results suggest that the cue-reactivity paradigm described here may be a useful tool for examining subtle physiological correlates of college drinking.

Emerging Realities of Text-to-Speech Software for Nonnative-English-Speaking Community College Students in the Freshman Year

This study explores the expectations and early and subsequent realities of text-to-speech software for 24 nonnative-English-speaking college students who were experiencing reading difficulties in their freshman year of college. The study took place over two semesters in one academic year (from September to June) at a community college on the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Data were collected using semistructured written diaries. Diary entries were collected at monthly intervals and analyzed using NVIVO 1.2 for emergent themes. Each student had an individual learning trajectory, but general patterns emerged across all participants. The study sheds light on the benefits and limitations of the software and its potential to affect positive learning and increased satisfaction in the lives of students with reading difficulties during the freshman year. It gives implications for practice and suggestions for further research.

Obesity as disease: definition by desperation.

Obesity as Disease:Definition by Desperation Jeremy Shermak I hated removing my shirt. Each visit to my doctor’s office, following a blood pressure and temperature check, the nurse would instruct me to take off my shirt so the doctor could examine me further. She would then leave the room. I remained perched atop the exam table, now half exposed, and a mirror on the wall would not leave me alone. In the reflection, I saw my oversized breasts and “fat roll” oozing out from my pants, hiding my belt. I tried to straighten my back—breathe in, no wait, breathe out—to resculpt the appearance, but it did nothing. I hated myself. Soon, a gentle knock at the door would interrupt the loathing and I’d shake hands with my doctor. I have been obese for the majority of my life—from childhood until I turned 34, when shortly thereafter, I had gastric bypass surgery. Since that time, I have lost 155 pounds and now write this at a comfortable, healthy 180 pounds. That said, my mind remains “obese”. My thinking remains shrouded deep within the obese personality that I embodied for all of those years. I still automatically walk to the big–and–tall section of clothing stores; I don’t recognize the 34–waist pants when they come [End Page 114] out of the dryer; I’m not used to seeing my ribs; and I’m still terrified of that exam room mirror. Upon hearing the news that the American Medical Association (AMA) now classifies obesity as a disease, my initial reaction was that of relief. My recent success was due in large part to the discovery and treatment of hindering endocrinological issues. My history—like repeatedly slamming head–long into a brick wall—suggests that these medically verified roadblocks have existed for some time. Despite my efforts, I didn’t stand a chance. If anyone were a “poster child” for obesity as a disease, it would be me. The lifelong sparring with my weight had its ups and downs; I worked very hard to maintain or lose weight with mixed results. I lost 85 pounds my freshman year of college by running and fervently watching my portions. I kept that weight off for a good five years before the summer of 2003, when I started gaining weight very quickly. I gained 25 pounds in each month of June and July that year, despite maintaining my usual eating habits and running schedule. I soon lost faith. I felt as though I was up against forces that I could not control and I began to forget about losing weight. I didn’t binge, but I didn’t eat well. By 2008, my weight had reached 375 pounds—an all–time personal high. Following a bad relationship and seeking rejuvenation, I embarked on a diet that summer like I’ve never tried before. I cooked everything naturally—from regular dishes like stuffed peppers all the way to condiments like ketchup. It was a militant effort on my part. I lost 50 pounds that summer and felt that I was well on my way back to the body that once felt so comfortable. It was at that point where I hit a wall. I could not get past 321. I can still see that number staring back at me on the scale. It was frustrating. I felt I had done all I could. That’s when I visited a doctor who ran some tests that revealed problems with my hormones and metabolic systems. As it turned out, I had a tumor on my pituitary gland. This may have been the issue all along. That led to low testosterone, which had a really negative impact on my weight loss efforts. After thorough consideration, I decided to have gastric bypass surgery to “reset” my hormones and get a “boost” in my weight loss efforts. It worked. In my particular circumstance, I could view obesity as a disease because its causes, for the most part, were not a result of conscious lifestyle choices. I had no control over the pituitary tumor. However, I know that I could have done more to limit my...