Gmr2013 cropsandbleeds by George Mason

Exemplary undergraduate writing across the curriculum Volume 22 / 2012-2013

The George Mason Review

Mission Statement

The mission of The George Mason Review is to capture Mason’s spirit, where “innovation is tradition,” through the publication of diverse works from across the curriculum. The George Mason Review, a publication for undergraduates by undergraduates, seeks scholarship that demonstrates creativity and critical thought. In its print and virtual form, this cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary journal features exemplary academic work and welcomes submissions that challenge the boundaries of how scholarship has traditionally been defined.

Submissions (How-to)

Submissions are welcome during our review period from September 01 to April 15. We accept research writing, literary critiques or analyses, creative nonfiction, visual art, and all other forms of scholarship. Please submit your work electronically at gmreview. gmu.edu. Because The George Mason Review is an undergraduate journal, each submission is reviewed by at least two of your peers. Each submission undergoes a two-tiered review: First, it is evaluated by the GMR peer review staff, which consists of peer reviewers from across the disciplines. If it is accepted by the peer review staff, it will then be reviewed by the GMR editorial board, which consists of our editor-in-chief, assistant editor, and graduate adviser. More information can be found on our website, gmreview.gmu.edu.

Awards Best Overall Submission

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality Career Obstacles for Chinese Businesswomen? Stephanie Tran

Best Senior-Class Submission

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students Kathryn Weigel

Best Junior-Class Submission Persevere or Party? Mike Mateo

Best Sophomore-Class Submission My Dollhouse Ross Bragg

Best Freshman-Class Submission Can Professsor Layton Teach Us? Crista Leonard

The George Mason Review

This volume would not have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of our undergraduate Board of Directors and peer review staff. We would like to honor those involved. Thank you!

Editor-in-Chief: Evelyn Seay Assistant Editor: Gabriela M. Galeano Marketing Director: Anjelica Michael Design Director: Katie Strylowski Faculty Advisers: Lynne Constantine and Sarah E. Baker Graduate Adviser: R. E. Johnson Peer Reviewers: Francis Aguisanda, Dawar Aziz, Husna Aziz, Tameem Aziz, Jessica Campbell, Kiara Mays, Dana Moon, Namita Paul, Stephanie Skees

Acknowledgements This publication would not have been possible without the unrelenting support of many people and departments throughout the year. In addition to my wonderful staff and faculty mentors, the staff of Student Media deserves many thanks. Jacques Mouyal, Kathryn Mangus and the Communication Team deserve special attention for consistent support and the answers to my many questions. To Scott Berg of the English Department who served as a wonderful mentor to both Anjelica and me, thank you. Also, the staff owes deep thanks to all of OSCAR, but especially to Rebecca Jones. And, of course, many thanks to Justin Voigt, former Graduate Advisor, and Luis Sullivan, former Editor in Chief of the GMR. Evelyn Seay

The George Mason Review

Table of Contents Guest Essay

Project Realism

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

The Shaping of an American Icon

Dating Advice from Philosophers

Puck and The Duke

Persevere or Party?

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality Career Obstacles for Chinese Businesswomen?

Dr. Danielle Rudes

Bradley Hylton

Kathryn Weigel

Kyle Roll

Bob Bonsall

Alana Hackes

Mike Mateo

Stephanie Tran

The Dark Side of Albania: Exploring Human Trafficking

Famous Literature as Haiku

Glenn Gould in the Studio

My Dollhouse

Can Professsor Layton Teach Us?

The Effects of First Floor Elevation Distribution

Leslie Steiger

Bob Bonsall

Thomas Mirus

Grace Foulke

Crista Leonard

Daniel Scolese

Guest Essay

The George Mason Review

About the Author Douglas Eyman Department of English Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Professor Eyman teaches courses in digital rhetoric, technical and scientific communication, and professional writing in the Department of English. Eyman is the senior editor and publisher of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, an online journal that has been publishing peer-reviewed scholarship on computers and writing since 1996. His scholarly work has appeared in Pedagogy, Technical Communication, Computers and Composition, and the edited collections Cultural Practices of Literacy (Erlbaum, 2007), The Handbook of Research on Virtual Workplaces and New Business Practices (IGI, 2008), and Rhetorically Rethinking Usability (Hampton Press, 2008), among others. His current research interests include investigations of digital literacy acquisition and development, new media scholarship, electronic publication, information design/information architecture, teaching in digital environments, and massive multiplayer online role playing games as sites for digital rhetoric research.

Guest Essay

One of the first lessons you learn as a writing teacher is that if you ask students to write texts that hold no interest for them, the writing will be functional but boring (at best) or downright unreadable (at worst). When I teach my writing courses, I try to always include at least one exercise or project that engages a real audience, whether assisting our Office of Technology Transfer to advertise Mason-owned patents for potential licensees or helping a local nonprofit to investigate the best ways to develop an oral history archive of the experiences of inner-city students who have struggled to gain basic literacy skills. In each of these examples, my students had to use a range of research methods to help them solve writing problems; but in the process of carrying out and reporting their research activities, they also used writing as a tool for completing and evaluating the research process. Research and writing have much in common: • Research and writing are both problem-solving tools. • Research and writing are both simultaneously processes and products. • Research and writing are both require diligence, effort, and practice to do well. • Research and writing can both improve the world in which we live (but the former cannot do so without the aid of the latter. • Research and writing are both supported and valued here at Mason. I believe that one of the reasons that Mason provides a quality education is our emphasis on writing across the curriculum and the new push to support students as active scholars who are solving problems, whether those problems are situated within a particular discipline or a local community. It is important, I think, to have both goals: everyone should be able to effectively and ethically carry out problem-solving research and everyone should have the training to communicate clearly the results of such problem-solving. My own teaching and research focuses in part on the reciprocal relationship between research and writing and how it can be exploited to benefit both researcherswho-write and writers-who-research through the power of rhetoric. Rhetoric is essentially the art of effective communication; it is finding the best way to express an argument or idea through the performance of language, whether that performance is written, oral, visual, or kinesthetic. All research results – from projects in the humanities, social science, business, natural science, and so on – are only as effective as the rhetoric and writing that communicate those results. Indeed, many of our everyday activities, both prosaic (shopping lists, Facebook status updates, text messages) and historically important (scientific breakthroughs, technological innovations, the flows of capital and investment) are accomplished via writing. While it is certainly possible to carry out research that is not recorded or reported, the effects of such work are very limited (often just personal); if you want your research to affect the world, you need to communicate it, and communicate it well. The George Mason Review collects well-written, rhetorically-savvy reports of research, creativity, and scholarship; the scholars whose work appears here have shown that, through writing, their research can be recognized and reach a wider audience than

The George Mason Review

that provided by a classroom of peers and an instructor. The GMR showcases the best research and writing that our students produce and as such it is an endeavor worthy of our support â&#x20AC;&#x201C; support from readers, from the faculty and staff of the university, and from our student-scholars. I hope to see many more examples of fine writing and research (from all disciplines) in future issues.

Guest Essay

Scholarly Works

The George Mason Review

Project Reality Bradley Hylton

Major: Computer Game Design

About the Work:

The following piece is a game design document; more specifically a mechanic design document. Design docs are usually not published; nor even intended for reading by anyone outside of the production team the author(s) belong to; they are statements that help the entire project team working on a game keep clearly on task. Design documents start with a short statement about what makes the game unique or different, the “x” of the game; think of this like the “thesis” of a research paper. From there the document expands on the design, first in broad strokes, then into specifics, often ending with very technical information, including coding references, asset lists and the production schedule. This is a little a different; I don’t go into excruciating detail, nor do I have an intended production schedule; I wrote this in its current form to publish, not to spend money I don’t have getting together a team large enough to develop it. Also, unlike most design documents, as this is a public document, I made an effort to properly cite the sourcing that inspired the ideas and provide appropriate references. Also, it expresses broad ideas, not exact values, because such are unnecessary to the average reader and would be changed in play testing if this game was actually developed. It is still; however, a design for game mechanics and I publish in hopes that some designer of greater means will read it and decide to implement some of my ideas. This project started as a paper for the core English 302 course; the assignment sounded simple enough, to research the cross-section of your major and food. In my case; however, being a Game Design major, it proved quite difficult to find scholarly resources on game design elements around food; or much about games from an artistic perspective at all. I found myself doing a lot of original research; directly playing old games, reading blogs and professional reviews of titles. At one point, whilst attempting to get leads for research using an internet forum, I was made fun of completely for studying game design. I knew that I had to try to get something respectably published from my research for both my own sake and that of the fledgling field of ludology (game studies).

Project Reality

I. Overview Title: Project Realism High Concept: Using hunger, thirst and other homeostatic concerns in a consistent fantasy setting project realism makes the characters and the world more authentic to the player and the real world issues of hunger more tangible. Genre: Project Realism is a mechanic set, most directly designed for a first-person action role-playing game [RPG], such as Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian, 2010) and Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (Bethesda, 2011). Most of the design elements; however, may easily be applied to any stat-based RPG or strategy game. Setting: Project realism can be applied to multiple game stories and the associated settings. For the purposes of this document; we will explore three settings as a base example of the projected uses of the mechanic set. These are: science fiction, modern and high fantasy settings. Target Educated adults with previous gaming experience. Level of realism meshes well with Audience: realistic action and drama, easily delving into adult themes. More exact target age brackets will vary based on the setting and story the mechanics are being used with. Game Flow: The mechanic set is integral to emergent gameplay properties; deriving ludonarrative and immersive value through the player needing to consistently return to the menus to maintain the player character’s [PC] mental and physical health. User interface [UI] elements associated with this set will need to be interacted with at regular intervals during play. Visual Style: Realistic; dirty; dark; not necessarily photorealistic, but an art style adequately representing the real world.

II. Gameplay Emergent technology is also called systemic gameplay because the game is broken down into small systems, and it is these systems that can interact in different and interesting ways. In most cases, players may achieve unpredictable results … and perform actions never thought of by the designer … The goal of using emergence in a game is to offer the player a lot of freedom and options, … [I]n theory, it will let players experience a game world as more like reality. (Dunniway; Novak, 2008, p.167-169) Project Realism is primarily a set of systems for emergent gameplay. They form part of the core of larger games and may interface with combat, dialogue and all other systems important to gameplay. The purpose of these systems is to simulate the PC having realistic needs of food, water and rest in order to add depth, difficulty and realism to the game. Though they have ludonarrative value, they do not directly impact the main storyline of the game. Their direct gameplay effects are an added challenge to the game, forcing the player to manage realistic health markers for the PC on top of the other challenges presented by general gameplay. These mechanics are meant to be used with other mechanics, such as combat and dialogue, but, as demonstrated by games like Lost in Blue (Konami, 2005), simple survival, even simplified can function as the sole core of a game. There is a certain level of balancing in developing a mechanics set for realistic

The George Mason Review

hunger effects; on the one hand, you want the player to experience the sensation that their character may be in real peril from not eating and have realistic enough effects to be believable. On the other hand, these effects need to add a reasonable level of difficulty without detracting from the core story and other mechanics of the emergent system. Worrying about your character starving to death and trying to keep the PC healthy is good. Bogging the player down with the tedium of calorie counting is not. Overall the mechanics described herein should foster this realism without tedium.

III. Systems A. Primary Statistics

The following is the statistical “core” of Project Realism. What portion (if any) is directly visible to the player should vary amongst implementations, based on the precision of mechanical knowledge the player needs for the challenge level of the game. For true realism; however, it is recommended that no statistic be directly visible to the player, with the only indication of their status being their direct and indirect effects. Hunger: Overall willingness to eat, simplified into a set of states. Fat: The body fat stored as both a raw value (in pounds or kilograms) and a percentage of their total weight. Muscle: The muscle mass stored as both a raw value (in pounds or kilograms) and a percentage of their total weight. Hydration: Current thirst, varying from death by water poisoning through normal levels to extreme desiccation. Tiredness: Willingness and ability to sleep. Sleep Debt: Total count of hours of sleep “missed.” Temperature: Current core temperature of the character.

i. Hunger

The following are the proposed base stages of hunger. Note that amounts of time referenced should vary based on physical strain on the character, which is expounded upon later in the document. Stage Description Overindulged: Player Character [PC] has eaten too much. PC’s movement speed and physical endurance are temporarily lowered. Physical exertion may cause nausea. Satiated: “Normal” status. Hungry: PC hasn’t eaten in more than three hours and less than two days. The PC may experience minor muscle cramps or lack of concentration due to lack of food. Fast: PC hasn’t eaten in more than two days. The PC no longer desires food, because their digestive system has shut down. Their movement speed and endurance are lowered and the PC may require more sleep, due to lack of energy. Muscle cramping may occur at any time.

Fat

Muscle

Increases

Stable

Decreases

Stable

Decreases Quickly

Decreases Slowly

Project Reality

Stage Description

Fat

Muscle

Starving: “Warning” status, lasts a few hours at the end of a fast.

Decreases Quickly

Emaciated: With too low of body fat to survive, the PC’s body begins breaking down muscle mass for energy. Character’s movement speed, endurance and physical strength are all very low.

Decreases Quickly

Dying: PC’s body breaks down anything it can, including nerve tissue, desperately trying to stay alive. Death eminent. Even if the PC survives, permanent stat loss possible.

Amounts of time in the previous table are averages; actual values may vary based on physical exertion. At fast and lower levels, attempts at suddenly eating large amounts of food are likely to not work, causing nausea if attempted or serious illness if forced. At these levels, non-solid foods such as soups and juices let the character begin eating again more slowly. Only emaciated and dying states are dangerous to a character’s permanent well being. A player’s choice to have his or her character “fast” for an extended period of time as a method of lowering the character’s fat total is perfectly acceptable. Even remaining in this state is acceptable, though a more difficult fast shouldn’t be too punishing to the player. ii. Physical Exertion

All actions the PC performs use some of the character’s energy; this including a “base” exertion, that is spent while even standing idle or sleeping. Base exertion is based on real caloric loss values for rest state; and increases with the amount of muscle a character has for simple “upkeep” factor. If the PC has available food calories from recent meals, exertion draws from these first; otherwise it draws energy from fat and muscle causing loss of body mass. Heavily straining activities, such as combat, after recently ingested protein in the body lead to increases in muscle mass, whilst such strenuous actions without free protein may lead to net muscle loss. Fat gain occurs from either true overeating or lack of adequate physical activity to offset caloric intake. During times of fast and lower hunger status, physical expedites the process of reaching a true starving status. Due to this, though a player may choose to keep a character healthy in fast for extended periods, it is recommended only for PC’s whose stat focus is on charisma or intellect, as opposed to physical strength or at least during times of fast, physical activity levels be decreased. Physical exertion also has a direct effect on the character’s temperature, having a high chance of raising it high enough to cause sweating under normal circumstances or helping a player maintain warmth at the cost of burning a lot of calories in colder environments. iii. Fat and Muscle

The fat statistic directly increases the character’s defenses, while decreasing their movement speed and apparent athleticism. Fat is increased by overeating or not exercising enough and decreased through fast or regular physical exertion. Muscle directly correlates with and adds to the player’s strength. It also increases the

The George Mason Review

upkeep. With base amount of food, a player needs to not begin starving. Fat and muscle together directly affect the appearance of the character, both affecting both how they actually appear on screen (see visual effects) and how NPC’s perceive the character. iv. Hydration

The amount of time it takes for the PC to die of thirst varies largely on the physical situation the character is in, directly based upon exertion and core temperature. Hydration is collapsed to a single numeric value. Death by water toxicity, though possible, should be a non-concern for most players because water amounts above a healthy level of hydration should quickly fall. Hydration drops slowly with time, simulating natural loss. Water, fruits and other comestibles with high amounts of water directly raise the stat. Situations in which the character’s temperature rises, raise the rate at which water is lost, exertion also directly causes water loss and situations of lower temperature decrease water loss. When the character is dehydrated, negative effects may occur to make this more apparent to the player; these include “dizziness”, and temporarily decreased intelligence and strength. Dangerously low levels lead to hallucinations, shakes and deliriously performing dangerous activities, such as drinking seawater. v. Tiredness and Sleep Debt

The PC’s tiredness is directly affected by the amount of time since the he or she last rested, the amount of physically strenuous activity in that time, and drug effects such as caffeine or sleep aides. If tiredness is left unchecked; after a day of in-game time the PC will have decreased intelligence due to the inability to concentrate, and lightheaded effects, after which several hallucination effects and fainting are likely. Unlike other physical conditions; however, it is impossible to directly die from tiredness; the PC may be close to driven insane, but they will fall unconscious rather than die. Sleep debt cumulatively adds to the rate tiredness increases until it is addressed. Unless the PC has a trait to state otherwise, it is assumed that they require the “average” eight to ten hours of rest per day; sleep debt is calculated based on this. Sleep debt’s only other direct effect on gameplay is raising the chance if the character falls asleep that they won’t respond to alarms; or even animal bites or other physical trauma, due to the body’s desire to “catch up”. This effect is only dangerous if the PC passed out in a hazardous area or the amount of time spent asleep exacerbates other conditions, such as starvation. vi. Temperature

Even if hypothermia or heat stroke isn’t a realistic threat in the setting for the game, taking into account the effect of a character’s core temperature into physical exhaustion and dehydration is important. Changes to the temperature are based largely upon the environmental temperature and the physical exertion of the PC, as well as the player’s choice in clothing for their character. Direct bearing on gameplay is almost exclusively due to emergent interaction with other subsystems, the most extreme being during hypothermia. In a hypothermic

Project Reality

situation, first, after a slight change in the character’s temperature, comes shivering, burning energy rapidly. Greater levels lead to severe tiredness (though falling asleep may be fatal), loss of strength and hallucinations. vii. Traits

Largely inspired by the “mutations” from Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup (DCSS DevTeam, 2002), traits indicate what makes the PC unique as compared to the average human. Traits such as polyphasic sleeper (Pavlina, 2007) or ectomorph may directly affect these systems. The base idea of a trait is that it either slightly or majorly effects how a certain portion of the mechanics set affects the PC. For example, a polyphasic sleeper needs to sleep far less than the average person, but must keeper an oddly strict sleep schedule to prevent severe tiredness. An ectomorph puts on fat and muscle slower than the average person and burns them quicker; they also tend to have higher flexibility and agility. In science fiction or fantasy settings, non-humans may quantify their racial differences using these sorts of qualifiers, such as a feline race being unable to digest plants, but getting higher nutrition from meats being qualified as a “carnivorous” trait. Traits also affect combat, dialogue and other systems not detailed here.

B. Inventory

Similar to the Fallout series, the carrying weight/capacity of the inventory should scale with the PC’s physical strength. Also, the player’s inventory should fit into a backpack or messenger bag as opposed to hammerspace. i.

Item Quality

The quality of an item is represented by a quick easy to use star-value, which consists of two parts: the maximum value of an item and its current status. For a couple examples: ★☆ Currently one star; maximum value of two. ★★★☆☆ Currently three stars; maximum value of five.

This quick way of showing an item’s quality to the player rolls together two systems into a simple interface. This is based on the sarcastic quality system used in Fable II (Lionhead, 2008), with the added feature of having realistic spoilage and shelf life. The maximum value of an item represents the quality it should be when the PC buys it. For a base idea; using fantasy setting for dramatic effect: ★★★★★ Of the gods; magically imbued perfection. ★★★★ Fit for a king; best a man can create. ★★★ Average food for knights and royalty. ★★ Everyday food for peasants. ★ Barely edible; may cause nausea.

Every food item has an “average shelf life” statistic used to determine how quickly it spoils in the inventory. Depending on the food, this statistic may or may not appear in UI.

The George Mason Review

The spoilage of an item is made clear to the player through the loss of stars over time. When an item is bought from the shops, it’s either near or at its maximum value; however, each item should have a realistic countdown clock used to measure its loss of value as it rots. After a preset amount of time a star is lost from the item’s value. When an item reaches a 0 star value it has rotted away completely. For other items, such as weapons; these numbers instead represent steady wear and tear before breaking; based primarily upon usage, rather than storage time. ii. Comestible Statistics

All comestibles, items that may be eaten or drank, have statistics based on their health qualities. These include the amount of energy provided from the PC eating the item, the chance of sickness or nausea caused by lower quality items; how much hydration the item provides and any unique effects. In fitness and nutrition, foods are often simplified down to calories from fat, calories from carbs and calories from proteins. In this system this is taken one step further; “caloric value” and “protein” are the two. These are roughly based on the actual values of real world foods and are used in determining the amount of physical exertion the character can perform before requiring more food or beginning to feel hungry. The “water” or “hydration” value of an item is also important and may be negative, in cases such as alcohol causing a net loss of water. Chances of nausea and illness abound with lower quality and nearly spoiled foods. “Unique” effects may be used to add ‘flavor’ to normal items, such as a temporary effect of increased strength from eat meat; but their primary function is the medicinal value of drinkable potions and elixirs. iii. Food Preservation and Replication

If magic exists and is usable by the player in the setting of the implementation, the player should be given the ability to use magic to preserve food and even restore quality to food after it has begun to rot. However; as games such as The Black Cauldron (Sierra, 1986) and DikuMUD (Hammer, et. all, 1991) demonstrate, giving the player a “create food” spell, or an unlimited source of free food erodes the point of these systems, unless either the spell or item of unlimited food is accessible only for a limited time, as protection during a particularly hard challenge or as a reward near the end of the game, or the materials necessary to cast the create food spell themselves are used up by casting, as they are in Ultima IV (Origin, 1985). Similarly, modern technology like refrigerators and freezers may be used to preserve food in a modern or science-fiction setting. However, devices like the replicator from Star Trek should not be available without either a cost associated with their use, or a limited area in which they may be used to prevent food from becoming worthless. iv. Cooking

Often in games there are very exacting recipes, such as the Wasteland Omelet in Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian, 2010), which require tracking down specific ingredients to make something precisely based on a recipe book. This is perfectly acceptable if the PC is rich and trying to make the perfect soufflé or the recipe is for an exact medicine, etc. Simply subsisting with what one has is far more realistic for survival situations.

Project Reality

For this reason, the primary cooking system is mostly “simple effects.” The PC killed an animal; they choose to smoke the meat so it will keep or cook it into a steak to make it healthier than eating raw meat. The PC is forced to eat rotten meat because they are starving, he/she can heavily spice the meat to reduce the chance of nausea. This does not preclude the possibility of their being exact recipes for quest items, medicinal tonics and the like, but the availability of simply cooking an item on the fire is important to any sort of feel of realism.

IV. Level Designs According to Quests (Howard, 2008, p. 77), “role-playing games abound in objects, which can be organized into “tiers” according to their relative functional and thematic importance…minor and relatively useless objects that give a sense of realism to a simulated world, such as yarn, calipers and carrots...classified as “clutter,” implying that they are placed into an area as a decorative afterthought…functional objects that help players to perform more effectively in the game, including weapons, armor, and potions...[and] “quest items” [which] play an essential role in the back stories behind a quest.” These roles are traditionally true; though the barriers between these groups have worn down with time, such as in Half-Life 2 (Valve, 2004), the “gravity gun” weapon, which allowed all random clutter throughout levels to be “weaponized,” as well as, various quest items in the Elder Scrolls series having functional value as powerful artifacts on top of their importance to main story quests and region backstory. In Project Realism, these barriers should be demolished completely. Unless an item in the real world would have literally no purpose, such as a lawn ornament, it should be useable for its real world purpose in game. Kitchen items are useful for cooking, random bits of food left in abandoned houses can be used to bait animal traps or eaten; staplers work as staplers, pens can draw on things, etc. Mise en scène is very important; usable objects are placed to stage realistic living spaces to encourage the feel of the real world. Care should be taken in placing objects in a manner that makes sense to the environments looking inhabited; while taking note that even common objects have usage. However, overly abundant items will still effectively become “clutter”, because no rational player is going to fill their inventory with staplers.

V. Artistic Style As Roguelikes, such as Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup (DCSS DevTeam, 2002), demonstrate hunger can be a serious pressure on the player even with little to no art. However, to immerse the player in the gravity of their situation, either a realistic art style like that of Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2008) or a dark style, like that of Pathologic (Ice Pick Logic, 2006) is preferable. In both of these cases, the setting is an impoverished area and the PC must manage hunger and disease for serious survival challenge. The color palette is varied with the character’s current status, reflected the relative

The George Mason Review

hopeful or bleakness of the situation. Overall an unsaturated, dull and dark style is preferable as it promotes a more serious tone. The PC’s “fat and muscle” statistics affect the physical appearance of the character dynamically during gameplay, giving a level of personality and increased realism to the character’s physical fitness. The purpose of these physical alterations is twofold; they allow the player to relate to and try to perfect the physical condition of the PC; and if the PC becomes emaciated with dangerously low fat and muscle totals, actually appearing as a ghost of their healthy form, like a holocaust victim, increasing the dramatic effect and sense of panic to the player.

A. Status Effects

Several status effects may be employed to communicate the PC’s mental status to the player. Usually these are achieved through camera tricks, stylized mechanics changes, phantom sounds, rendering objects that aren’t there or a combination thereof. Common ones include nausea and dizziness; more severe situations include hallucinations and delirium. Nausea is achieved through having the camera be slightly out of focus and changing the PC’s walk animation to that of someone experiencing stomach pain. Dizziness puts the camera out of focus and makes the character harder to control, having a chance of falling down and having some intentional lag in response to controls. Hallucinations include phantom sounds (hearing things that aren’t there) and phantom sights (seeing things that aren’t there); the content of hallucinations varies with the cause; such as hallucinations due to dehydrating including hearing water, when there is no water or hallucinations due to hypothermia including seeing an icy cavern as a warm home; hence these are highly situational and have to be preplanned by the developer. Delirium, the most desperate and frustrating situation to the player, occurs when the player completely loses control of the PC due to the severity of the situation, allowing the character to take willfully hazardous actions due to mental taxation, such as trying to drink sand or oil to quell thirst.

VI. Other Notes Though the primary focus here was on human and humanoid characters; similar survival systems could function well with realistic animals in mechanic sets like that of Tokyo Jungle (Playstation C.A.M.P., Crispy’s, 2012). For fantasy settings, “uncooking”, like RuneScape (Jagex, 2001) may be acceptable. That is, using magic to restore food to its raw state, either for characters who prefer raw food or to restore to raw state to regain nutrition lost in the cooking process in order to cook again, such as turning beef jerky back into raw beef in order to make a steak. Though much of the point of Project Realism is realism and relatability; in some cases, theatricality may seem more real and relatable than reality. Visual effects being over the top or a character becoming starving more quickly than they would in real life are all feasible design choices to be made during play testing.

Project Reality

The George Mason Review

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students Kathryn Weigel Major:

About the Work: The current paper was written as part of an independent research course through the sociology and anthropology department. Qualitative methods were used to examine factors impacting marital success among undergraduate college students. My faculty research mentor for this project was Dr. Shannon N. Davis, and we began working together after I had completed her sociology course on marriage, families, and intimate life. This course studied the diverse types of families in contemporary society including traditional marriages, single-parent households, cohabitation, same-sex relationships, modern dating practices, and the implications of divorce for families. After completing the course, and gaining insight into the complexities of a typical contemporary family, I decided that I wanted a better understanding of what actually makes marriages succeed. The literature reflected a gap in understanding of marriages among college students. Also, while many sociological studies could explain demographics as related to marital success, I wanted to look into what individuals themselves actually thought to be most important in maintaining their marriages. I wanted to examine whether or not the demographic trends held true for undergraduate college students at George Mason University as well. To answer my research question, I interviewed eight female undergraduates from George Mason.

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

The determinants of marital success among college students are less associated with the couples’ demographic characteristics and more related to their individual experiences and values, their ability to work together in a partnership, and manage conflict effectively. Marital success has different definitions for different people. Longevity may be one definition, but marital satisfaction and happiness are other crucial aspects of marital success. Marital success and satisfaction result from numerous factors that are all interrelated. This study will examine the factors that married women perceive to be reasons for their marital success. The study focuses on college students, and includes questions about how being married in college is perceived to affect their marriage. To be married in college is not necessarily part of the traditional college experience. Many of the women in the study are likely to be “nontraditional” students, having come back to their education after taking time off or coming back for a second undergraduate degree. With the increasing importance of higher education in the job market, this phenomenon is actually becoming more popular, and is therefore it is important to understand what these women think is critical in keeping their marriages alive.

Literature Review Marital success and satisfaction are measured in numerous ways. Some studies distinguish between marital quality and marital stability and longevity. Richard A. Mackey and Bernard A. Brian (1995) examined five main factors affecting marital satisfaction: conflict, decision-making, communication, relational values, and intimacy. Demographically, the study found that characteristics including educational level, income, religion, and ethnicity did have a stronger influence on marital satisfaction than age, length of marriage, number of children, and gender (Mackey and O’Brien 1995). Another study found that “Intimacy appeared to be a central quality of enduring marriages” (Robinson and Blanton 1993). Intimacy in this study refers to both emotional and physical connection and was linked to better communication, congruency in relational perceptions and commitment. Couples reported that their intimacy grew over time, through good and bad patches of their marriage. The aspect of commitment that is tied to intimacy “may be considered as the ability to renegotiate the relationship as changes occur, similar to the concept of adaptability” (Robinson and Blanton 1993). The sense of commitment needs to be not only to the institution of marriage, but to one’s partner as well.

Cohabitation

Many research studies have examined the relationship between marital stability, one aspect of marital success, and premarital cohabitation. Multiple researchers have found that premarital cohabitation has a negative affect on lasting marriage (DeMaris and Leslie 1984; KampDush 2004). This research finding is not simply explained, as many would have expected the exact opposite result. Cohabitation should give couples more time together before marriage and more time to determine their compatibility, but researchers are suggesting that cohabitation potentially decreases couples’ traditional

The George Mason Review

views on marriage. However, if the theory on traditional views were to be true one would expect that the negative correlation would decrease over time as peoples’ attitudes change. There no evidence of this with recent research (Kamp Dush 2004). Coltrane and Adams (2008) refer to this phenomenon as the ‘cohabitation effect’ (84). One explanation for this phenomenon is the theory of ‘selection’ which suggests that couples who choose to cohabitate are fundamentally different than the couples who choose to marry. Some research suggests that cohabitation does not have a negative affect on marriage if people only cohabitate with their future spouse (Coltrane 84). Thereis still no evidence that cohabitation gives couples any type of advantage in creating marital longevity. The relationship between premarital cohabitation and marital success cannot be fully explained.

Children

Early sociologists believed that children could actually hold marriages together due to increased ‘organic solidarity’ (Waite and Lillard 1991) or potential new bonds between parents after the birth of children. This research also suggests that the effect of children on marital success relates to the number, ages, and timing of children, specifically related to the timing of marriage (Waite and Lillard 1991). Premarital childbirth in particular had a negative affect on marital stability. Overall the research suggests that, “the number of children changes the timing of disruption, but does little to change its long-run probability” (Waite and Lillard 1991) therefore explaining that children alone cannot build marital satisfaction and success. Another study suggested that the factors affecting marital success and satisfaction are different for parents compared to those of childless couples. The nature of a relationship changes with the birth of a child, which can make different aspects of the relationship more important (Guttman and Lazar 2004). This study did agree with the previous research that found parents overall were more satisfied with their marriages than were childless couples.

Religiosity

Some of the most prominent religions in the United States have strong pro-marriage or anti-divorce beliefs. Therefore, it is believed, and supported by research, that people who with high religiosity may be more likely to marry and less likely to experience infidelity or for their marriages to end in divorce (Wolfinger and Wilcox 2008). Religion impacts marital relationships differently depending on the specific religion and potentially even denomination (Marks 2005). Some factors are consistent over most religions, one factor being the influence of clergy and other religious leaders. Religious leaders have the ability to hurt or help one’s beliefs and level of trust in marriage. They also can provide marital support and potential counseling for couples. The influence of rituals, particularly family rituals, may strengthen bonds between couples. The shared rituals give couples a common interest and allow them to spend time together. However, if the couple happens to be interfaith, it could have a negative impact, especially when it affects the extended family. Also, if a couple becomes over involved in religious activities it may actually create challenges for the couple and take away from time that could be spent together. One study also suggests that prayer has a positive impact on the

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

marriage and that couples may also be able to use prayer and faith overall as a source of marital support (Marks 2005; Lambert and Dollahite 2006). Other research suggests that religiosity helps couples deal with conflict in their marriages. Lambert and Dollahite (2006) confirmed that “religious beliefs and practices helped couples: prevent problems, resolve conflict, and work toward reconciliation” (442). This study also made mention that “the risk of marital dissolution was nearly three times greater when the wife regularly attended religious services, but the husband never attended”(440). The work of Lambert and Dollahite, as well as that of Marks, hint at differences in religiosity potentially leading to more conflict in the relationship.

Work, Income, and Job Stability

The economics of marital relationships and family life can have a large impact on the stability of marriages. Job stability, specifically, has been linked with marital stability. This connection is not a direct causation and may be complicated by other factors. However, one study identifies how “frequent job movement by men may signal a low level of reliability, thus lowering their attractiveness to wives,” demonstrating how job instability may lead to marital instability in making the men less attractive partners. For already married couples, change of jobs may have a positive or negative affect on marriage. A new job could mean having to move or more hours at work, which can always add strain, but a new job could also be to help accommodate a partner in one of many ways (Ahitub 2005). The balance between family and work has been proposed as another potential issue related to marital satisfaction. Gender role ideologies play an important role in whether both spouses are satisfied with their arrangement of managing work. Regardless if just one or both spouses work outside of the house, the unpaid work does not necessarily need to be split in the middle, rather, both spouses need to be satisfied with the arrangement for higher levels of marital satisfaction (Stevens, Kiger and Riley 2001).

Parental Marital Status

National trends all show that adult children of divorce are more likely to experience divorce themselves. One study found that parental divorce increases the offspring’s chance of divorce within the first five years of marriage by up to 70% (Bumpass et al 2000). The risk of marital dissolution is particularly high when both spouses have divorced parents or if the parental divorce occurs when children are age 12 or younger. The reason behind this is still debated and there are several probable causes. Some research suggests that parental divorce lowers children’s’ negative attitudes towards dissolution or may weaken any traditional values on marriage. Amato(1996) found that “young adults who grew up in divorced families are more pessimistic about the chances of life-long marriage and evaluate divorce less negatively than do other young adults” (631). Du Feng, Bengtson and Frye (1999) found that the transmission of divorce was present from parents to daughters, but not from parents to sons. They also suggest that the transmission of divorce may result from parental divorce being correlated with lower educational attainment and earlier age at marriage. Another explanation is that parental divorce has an impact on children’s interpersonal skills and behaviors. Without married parents, one may not learn the skills needed to function well in marriage. These children are more likely to experience issues with anger, jealousy, communication, and

The George Mason Review

infidelity among others (Amato 1996). This current research focuses on intergenerational transmission of divorce, but there is not as much evidence surrounding the transmission of marital quality in the literature. One study did show that parental divorce did not appear to have an effect on children’s marital quality (Du Feng et all 1999) even though overall divorce rates are higher for children of divorce.

Age at Marriage

Multiple research studies have shown that early marriages, especially teenage marriages, have a high risk of marital dissolution. In a study from 1972, age at marriage was found to be “the best single predictor of divorce” (Booth & Edwards 1985 p68). While the average age at marriage has increased over the past several decades, one study shows that over 25% of women in the United States will still marry prior to age 23 (Uecker & Stokes 2008) and the percentage of men is not too far behind. Early marriage was found to dirrectly correlate with one’s family background and race. Hispanics were found to be the most likely to marry young, followed by whites, and then by Blacks and Asians (Uecker & Stokes 2008). The study from Booth and Edwards found that among early to marry, ‘role performance’ was a critical part of marital stability. It is suspected that those who marry young are not as prepared to fulfill the spousal roles and lack all of the skills needed to make an intimate relationship work.

The Present Study This research study investigates why individuals perceive their marriages to be successful. What about their lives or their relationship contributes to the functionality of their marriage? As seen in the literature review, there have been multiple sociological studies explaining demographics and the likelihood of marital success, but what do people honestly feel to be most important? The trends show that women with a higher education, higher age at marriage, no prior cohabitation, high religiosity and financial stability tend to have lasting marriages. This study will examine whether participants at George Mason University reflect what statistics show should lead to a lasting marriage, and will describe what married individuals perceive to be the qualities that lead to lasting marriages, including their own.

Data Collection The study consisted of intensive interviews with eight currently married female students at George Mason University. The interviews were aimed at understanding what these females perceive to be the qualities that should lead, and perhaps have led, to lasting marriages. Participants were eight heterosexual, married female students at George Mason. The researcher only interviewed females, but it is possible, if not likely, that men would have had different perceptions of their marriage. The researcher first met with each participant, and had them fill out a brief questionnaire to reconfirm that they met the qualifications for the research study. The first eight participants who met all of the qualifications were asked to schedule a second meeting with the researcher. The

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

second meeting involved more in-depth questions regarding participants’ perceptions of their marriages. The interview questions consisted of not only direct questions of what makes marriage successful, but also of more personal questions including information about the couple’s dating and engagement period, their wedding, and other aspects of each woman’s life.

Results Description of Sample

It is important to recognize the heterogeneity of this sample group. The women interviewed ranged in age, religiosity, length of marriage, age at marriage, cohabitation experience, and number of children. Only one couple in the study were ‘High School Sweethearts,’ which is interesting because one may assume that if a student is getting married in college that they have known their partner for some length of time. Also, three of the couples had husbands that worked in the military. It is important to note that all of the couples have at least one demographic characteristic that puts them at a higher risk for marital dissolution. Table 1outlines the participant demographics.

Definitions of Marital Success

The findings show that marital success among the participants is not only defined by length, but also by happiness and ability to work together in the relationship. Participants noted this when they described their parents’ marriages as ‘horrible’ if they involved frequent fighting or mutual dislike of one another. Working together as a unit is discussed, reflecting that both partners need to work together and have to want the marriage to last. Partners need to be equally considerate and respectful of one another and cannot function purely as an individual in many situations. The women explained how conflict will inevitably occur, but that in a successful marriage, the conflicts will not be as frequent and the conflict will be handled in a mature manner. How I rate my success is that 99% of my week is happy with him, completely in love with him, and 1% isn’t (Interview 5). Larger concepts of companionship or strong friendship and general happiness also seemed to be an indicator of success for the participants.

Table 1. Participant Information Participant Years of Cohabitation Number Marriage

Children

Religion & Religiosity

Parental Marital Status

Husband’s Parental Marital Status

Husband Student Status

Yes

Yes - 2

None

Married

Graduate

Prodestanthigh religiosity

Married

Bachelors

Yes

None

Unknown

Married

High School

Unitarianhigh religiosity

Married

Bachelors in progress

The George Mason Review

Participant Years of Cohabitation Number Marriage

Children

Religion & Religiosity

Parental Marital Status

Husband’s Parental Marital Status

Husband Student Status

Orthodox Christianhigh religiosity

Divorced

Married

Bachelors in progress

Yes

Catholiclow religiosity

Never Married

Associates

Yes

None

Married

Divorced

Graduate

Yes

Catholichigh religiosity

Married

Other

Bachelors

The Role of the Individual

One key theme found in the marital success of the participants is the importance of the role of individual partners. Everyone expressed to a different extent the necessity of knowing your spouse’s personal characteristics and personality. Couples need to understand what it is that makes each other tick and have an understanding of how they can work together as a unit. One woman explained how she and her husband both have similar personalities and she did not believe that she would have been able to function with someone who was too different from herself. If we had someone who had that different structure level than we have, we just couldn’t tolerate it (Interview 1). Another participant and her husband went through numerous getting to know each other activities and communication practices in order to learn about one another and learn how to approach any conflicts that may arise. (Interview 5) This same participant believed that differences in personality could work, but that there must be something else strong enough to hold the couple together.Couples don’t necessarily have to have the same or similar personalities to be successful, but their personalities must be able to work well together. The pursuit of individual interests and alone time is another important factor in creating successful marriages. Six out of the eight women reported spending time on their own interests or taking time to go out away from their spouse and spend time with their own social circle. Especially in situations where both partners are college students, the individual pursuits may be difficult to work out. A twenty-two year old senior in college spoke about this issue with her husband and their mutual desire to pursue individual careers. We are trying to see if we can put one person into grad school before the other. So that one can work full time and one can work part time and go to grad school, we just don’t know who is going to do what yet (Interview 6). If one partner felt like they had to sacrifice a part of themselves or give up on a long-term goal, it could potentially cause resentment and lead to relationship troubles. Another twenty-year-old student explained the importance of individual friend-time for

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

both her and her husband. When we go home on weekends that’s like our biggest friend time. Like he has guy time on Fridays and I go out with my girls (Interview 2). Especially in college, this alone time may be more important since many of their peers are not married. Having separate friend time allows both partners to still bond as usual with their peer groups. One participant will even be going on a study abroad trip with the university for a month because she wants to get the most out of her college experience (Interview 4). All but one of the traditional college aged participants still showed the intentions to pursue careers or graduate school before settling down with a family. Culturally, college is known as a time for self-discovery and personal growth; a perspective which the women also reported as important in the success of their marriages. Each participant may have been at a different stage of this self-discovery, but it appears to be important regardless. Some of the women talked about growing up together with their partners, but one participant described her belief that people should, “mature ourselves as human beings, as individuals before we start being responsible for another person’s life” (Interview 5). Demographically, marriages that occur before spouses are 25 years of age have a 75% chance of divorce. Some could argue that this can be explained by a lack of maturity before marriage. The women in the study who married before age 25 referenced the importance of continued self-growth orindividual pursuits in some way. Since couples recognize the importance of continued self-growth, perhaps their young age will not affect their long-term marital success. The importance of individual roles also includes one’s individual expectations of their spouse because the couple needs to act as a unit to make decisions and be there to support each other when needed. A spouse’s individual pursuits still need to be discussed with their partner to decide what is best for the family as a whole. Several participants also expressed the importance of their marital support on their individual goals. The support of a spouse can make achieving tough goals or getting through tough classes in school more tolerable. Another trend within the eight interviews reflects how one partner’s personal struggles can cause troubles for the marriage. It really helps the situation if at least one partner is in a good place in life. If you are both in a happy place in life that’s great, but at least one of you has to be (Interview 8). If one person is not able to function normally, the relationship cannot be maintained healthfully. If the other spouse is able to be supportive and helpful, it helps to ease the situation and handle the conflicts that arise. However, a couple with both spouses as students expressed that having the same academic stresses brought them closer together (Interview 5) instead of causing more intense problems with two stressed spouses.

Family Background

Another key theme throughout the interviews was the influence of both partners’

The George Mason Review

family experiences and backgrounds. The family could have an influence on marriages in several ways: positive relation, in which the parents serve as good role models for marital behavior or give direct relationship advice. Several women reported receiving important martial advice from their parents on self-declared important issues like keeping open communication, not going to bed angry, sharing responsibilities, and always taking time to work on the relationship (Interviews 8, 2). Others used parents as a place to vent about marital issues and to then receive encouragement. This pattern only seems to appear when the spouse’s parents are married. Family traditions, or at least traditions from one spouse’s parents, were also passed down which women believed strengthened their marriages. One couple began their ‘Date Night’ tradition as a recommendation from their parents as something that had worked for them. His parents were the ones that kind of, I guess influenced us to the whole datenight and making time and money for date night…Because we, you don’t know, you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing, you don’t know what the problems are… they definitely encourage certain behaviors that he probably wouldn’t think of on his own(Interview 8). Most women openly admitted using their parental figures as role models. Only one participant stated that if there was any influence that it must have been subconscious (Interview 9). The majority of the positive family influences came from spouses with married parents, but in one case the positive influence came from a divorced and remarried parental relationship. The parents had a very civil and functional divorce, in order to provide a good home for their children, which the participant believed had strongly influenced her husband’s ability to function with her child’s biological father (Interview 8). There is also a negative relation, where people want to create the opposite environment in their marriage or family than what they were exposed to growing up. Surprisingly, many of the couples with a negative relation still came from married parents. Although the parents were still married, they may not have had a very happy relationship. Some had frequent arguments and did not work well together. One participant described the importance of doing the opposite of what she saw growing up, and openly stated that her parents, Had a terrible marriage. They hated each other...I was always like okay, I don’t like how this worked, so I’ll just do the opposite of that (Interview 1). This same sentiment was repeated in several other interviews, so it is not an uncommon trend.This sentiment also gave couples hope that no matter what, they can make the marriage workand it strengthened their commitment to working on their marriages. On the other hand, there are participants whose parents have been married and divorced more than once. In these cases the participants had a strong desire to simply not end up like their parents, but they did not comment on specific strategies or attributes that they wanted to change about them personally. Lastly the family can have an important role on an individual’s religion, which can be a major factor influencing marital success.Several participants had very religiously active families, which influenced their own spiritual growth and religious involvement.

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

Some participants mentioned faith, without religious activity, as playing an important role. Just having the spiritual belief that the marriage can be successful helps individuals commit to making it work. Many religions do not support divorce either, with the exception of extreme cases, so it would go against their personal beliefs to just give up or quit when they ‘fall out of love.’ All of the couples who even mentioned potentially seeking counseling for marital troubles came from a religious background of at least one spouse. And the one couple in the study who actually did reach out for help went to their church for counseling and guidance (Interview 4). Religious guidance can be beneficial for individuals before marriage in their own personal growth as well. This finding ties back into the first claim on the importance of the individual in that personal beliefs and feelings can play a significant role. Our goal is to mature ourselves as human beings, as individuals, before we start being responsible for another person’s life. And then by the time, we do know, we’vefocused on it so much, usually marriages work out (Interview 5). Religious beliefs were also reported to help hold the relationships together by giving couples a shared interest and also shared activities and social groups. Each couple is affected by their family in a different way, but a strong family influence is still present in all cases. Although not explicitly stated, interviews implied that even if family does not have an overt influence on their marital success, the family processes and aspects of their family background, such as culture, are still influential in just normalizing what marriage and family life is supposed to be. One couple expressed her understanding of fighting as a normal part of any relationship (Interview 9). Seeing parents go through rough patches but stick together, normalizes the fact that the marriage will not always be perfect and issues will arise. In one case, the family military background had a positive influence on her acceptance of a military lifestyle for her partner.The partner initially was worried that she would not be okay if he were to be deployed, He was really like, ‘Well what if I get sent overseas?’ In which I came from a military family and I was like, ‘You know, you get sent overseas, you get sent overseas…mean it sucks and I would worry about you, but that’s the only thing that would change (Interview 8). Military relationships especially, can be difficult, but her experience growing up helped normalize that lifestyle.

Gender Roles

A third key factor I found throughout the study is the presence of traditionally gendered roles.Traditionally gendered roles refers to similar behaviors to that of the nuclear family model in which the wife stays home, takes care of the children and housework and the husband goes to work to brings in all of the family income. All of the participants adhered to traditional gender roles in at least some manner. Even though the wife feels as though she is in control, she still takes control over the parenting and housework as opposed to the finances or bread-winning. Almost all of the women in

The George Mason Review

the study with children, claimed to be in charge of parenting. In the one case where this was not explicitly stated, there was still the impression that the wife did most of the childcare. There was some mention of husbands helping with the children when necessary, but it was clearly not their primary responsibility. There was a definite sharing of responsibilities, which participants stated as important for a good marriage, but the traditionally female roles are still performed by the wife. I make sure that, because he works forty hours a week somewhere, I do all of the housework. You know he might help with something like taking the trash out orsomething physically heavy, carry it up the stairs or whatever, but I see that as my job (Interview 8). This is an interesting finding considering that these women believe they have equality and a fair balance of power in the marriage. Most of the couples are very egalitarian in all other aspects regarding large family decisions, such as relocation, and even finances, but children and housework are still dominated by the wives. In some cases the gender role ideologies came from family backgrounds, which relates back to the influence of the family. One young female explains the importance of serving dinner and performing chores because that is something that she always saw her mother do for her father growing up. My mom did everything for my dad. Like she ironed his clothes and did all of those things, like kinda like, I feel like that’s what I’m supposed to do. So like my mom always made dinner for all of us and like she made our plates (Interview 7). Two of the couples who reported feeling this obligation, also came from nonwestern cultural backgrounds, which could also be an important factor as the roles of women in Eastern cultures can be extremely different even today. The two youngest women in the study reported dealing with a family versus career struggle that many women now face. They want to have kids and have a family, but they still want a career. Neither women mentioned their husband at all when discussing this struggle which reflects how there is still more pressure on females than males to stay home and raise children (Interview 2, 6).Over half of the couples still went through a very traditional dating period as well. The male pursued the female in these cases, instead of having the female initiate dates. Sexuality was also brought into this conversation when one participant dismissed some of her husband’s behavior as just typical male behavior that was beyond his control. She accepted his sexual temptations, but did not seem to allow herself the same freedoms (Interview 5). Other participants made generalizations about men’s lack of ability to clean or perform housework well. There were some instances of gender role defiance in most of the couples. One example being that the majority of the marriage proposals were mutual decisions which is non-traditional compared to the stereotype of the man getting down on one knee to ask for the woman’s hand in marriage. This shows how women are taking control and having some decision making power in the relationship as a whole. One woman reported that her defiance of gender roles, and control in the relationship was a turn off to her in-laws. This was especially true for her mother-in-law who has always been very

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

traditional and ‘passive’ (Interview 9).The military spouses seemed to portray a greater level of this defiance. Potentially because they live on their own for extended periods of time, while their husbands are deployed. I’m very much in charge and it wouldn’t’ have worked if I wasn’t. Like with himbeing in the military, if I couldn’t hold myself together while he was away for a year, there’s no way it would work, you know. So I’m not as reliant on him (Interview 4). This same interviewee, however, still adheres to gender roles with cleaning and cooking while her husband is home, so there is not a complete adherence or defiance of gender roles but rather a mix of both. This is a common trend among all of the couples.

The College Years

Another aspect of the study involves looking at factors affecting marriage that are present during the college years. For many students stereotypically, college is not a time for serious relationships, so how is it that these couples make it work? First of all, the non-traditional age of half of the participants did have a large effect. These older couples do not necessarily fall prey to a lot of the same pressures and they have already accomplished self-growth and discovery. Half of participants who were traditional college age, they expressed several college-related factors. One factor expressed was the importance of friends. The youngest couple especially focused on making sure each individual had their own time to spend with friends. When we go home on the weekends that’s like our biggest friend time. Like he has guy time on Fridays and I go out with my girls…so it’s nice like when we go home, to separate and like have our time with friends” (Interview 2). Others mentioned this as well, describing how they still liketo go out and have friend timeor even family timewithout their spouse. It is important for each individual to have other close relationships to fulfill social needs instead of relying purely on their spouse. College is stereotypically a time for going out with friends and having fun as well, which may contribute to the participants’ desires to have friend time. Another aspect that came up in interviews was the issue of purity. College today is known as a time for ‘hook-ups’ and sex without commitment, but this lifestyle is not acceptable for several of the participants and it actually influenced their decision to marry young. Religious beliefs do not condone premarital sexual relations so their personal ideologies could not line up with those of many other students. They reported feeling like it was harder to maintain a relationship without sex the older one gets and the longer a couple is together.Some even feel pressured into intimacy, because physicality is automatically expected of individuals in long-term relationships (Interview 6). Time is another concern raised by participants in all age groups.Being a fulltime student requires a lot of work, and a lot of work outside of the classroom. The participant’s schedule of work and school frequently did not coincide well with her partner’s schedule, leaving little time to be together. I’m taking all night classes. So there are some nights were…

The George Mason Review

mmm until like Saturday or Sunday come, neither one of us are home any day of the week, like either he’s out or I’m out, so you know it’s really busy and we don’t like see each other as much (Interview 9). Women reported not having enough time to spend leisurely with their spouse, and one reported not being able to have sex as frequently as she would like (Interview 4). Not having enough time to spend together can make maintaining the relationship, and working on improvements difficult. None of the participants, however, reported any feelings of loss of missing the ‘single life’ that the majority of other students enjoy.

Approaches to Handling Conflict

Another theme throughout the interviews was the importance of how a couple handles conflict. Conflict in marriage is inevitable, but these couples each seemed to have their own strategies to best deal with the conflict according to their personal, and their spouse’s characteristics. The approaches to handling conflict varied slightly, but one common trend was addressing issues as they come up and not letting tensions build up.The common phrase ‘Don’t go to bed angry’ was brought up by several women who all viewed the strategy as critical in their approaches to handling conflict. Taking the time to ‘fight it out’ immediately, instead of letting anger build up, helps prevent the conflict from escalating. Another important trend involves the role of the individual staying calm, having patience, and keeping a level head. Some couples separate to cool down before discussing an issue to avoid falling into emotionally heightened, and potentially hurtful argumentsand the act of choosing one’s battles also was discussed. Establishing clear rules and expectations of one another was demonstrated in younger couples to prevent conflicts before they even arise. Each couple devises their own strategies based on their personalities and how the couple works together as a unit. One participant even reported that the use of humor was common in their conflict resolution (Interview 4). When participants were asked directly to discuss factors important in creating a successful marriage, several broad themes were repeated: Communication, respectand consideration for one another, commitment to making the marriage work, and having a similar moral grounding. These themes and characteristics relate back to the approaches to handling conflict. When in an argument, if individuals are able to remain levelheaded and to stay respectful and calm the issue is more likely to be resolved successfully.

Discussion Overall, the definitions of marital success for these participants are congruent with previous literature. The women described communication, intimacy and conflict levels among other relational values as important in marital satisfaction,which is similar to Mackey and O’Brien’s 1995 study of the five main factors contributing to marital success. Longevity or remaining married for life does not seem to be the only determination of success, but how the couples function together and their levels of intimacy are crucial. Most of the results found in the study were not directly correlated with

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

demographic characteristics. For example, parental marital status does havean impact on a couple’s marital success, but it actually makes some couples more determined to make their relationships work instead of increasing their likelihood for divorce as indicated in earlier literature (Amato 1996). If the parents had a healthy, civil divorce that created a positive growing up environment the impact on participants was positive rather than negative. It is important to note, however, that the majority of participants in this study do have married parents and therefore could not have been impacted by the intergenerational transmission of divorce. When cohabitation was mentioned, the participants only mentioned the benefits of having cohabitated prior to marriage, which does not support the literature suggesting that premarital cohabitation increases the risk of dissolution. When discussing their cohabitation experiences, women expressed being able to get to know each other, learn each other’s pet peeves and likes and dislikes, and ‘work out the kinks’ before marriage. This contradiction between the interviews reporting positive benefits of cohabitation and negative demographical statistics on cohabitation is a question that other sociologists have poised, but there is no definitive answer or reasoning (DeMaris). As for age at marriage, five our of the eight women were married before age twenty-five, but none of them discussed their age as a part of their marital success. Similarly, education levels were not discussed in the interviews either. This is congruent throughout the study overall, with less attention paid to demographical information and a greater focus on aspects such as communication and other relational values. The one demographic that does seem to relate the most to martial success is religion. Similar to the Lambert and Dollahite 2010 study, couples do turn to their church for support in a time of conflict or struggleand as mentioned previously conflict levels are found to be important in marital satisfaction(Mackey and O’Brien). Religious leaders as well as social networks of friends at church can be strong sources of support. Five out of the eight couples interviewed described religion having some type of positive effect on their marriages, which supports the majority of current literature indicating the positive correlation between religiosity and marital success. One other possible relation exists between the participant’s descriptions of lack of time available to spend with their spouse with the Greenstein (1990) study involving the amount of hours worked outside the home being shown to increase marital dissolution rates in certain situations. Although this sample’s time constraints are mainly due to school and hours required for schoolwork instead of employment outside of the home, school is still non-household work that consumes time and could potentially affect marital stability. Income levels, however were not even mentioned in the conversations surrounding martial success.

Limitations and Implications for Future Research

Overall, this study revealed different perceptions of married college students in their beliefs about their personal marital success. Determinants of marital success had less to do with demographic characteristics and more to do with approaches to handling conflict and being able to work together in a partnership. There are some limitations to this study. Not all of the couples in this study have been married for over seven

The George Mason Review

years, the median time frame for divorce. Once couples have been married for over this seven-year mark, statistically their chances of staying married improve. Therefore, it would be interesting to do follow up interviews with all participants in another ten years to see if they are still married, and also to see if any of their views on their own marital success, or potentially the lack of success, change with time. The affects of age at marriage, educational attainment and the affect of children on marital success could also be examined more successfully as the participants age, graduate, and potentially have children or as their current children grow older. Also, it is important to note that only the wives were interviewed and their husbands may have differing opinions. It would be beneficial to conduct more interviews, interviewing both partners individually and then interviewing the couple together. Also, this study included eight individuals, but it would be interesting to look at a larger sample size to increase generalizability. These more in-depth processes could potentially lead to a better overallunderstanding of marital success that is not limited by gender.

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students

The George Mason Review

The Shaping of an American Icon Kyle Roll

Major: Government and History

About the Work: The purpose of this article is to examine a period of President John F Kennedy's life that is rarely examined by biographers yet had an immense impact on his rebellious image and development as a leader. Very few people would have believed that someone who was almost expelled from school for mischievous conduct would ever have become the leader of the free world. This article was written for Dr. Burnham's English 302 Course. The research utilizes primary sources such as letters written by John F Kennedy, school records, and journal entries as well as works written by biographers.

As noted in our mission statement, The George Mason Review has both a print and virtual form, and we have tried to select a number of works that best suit the GMR’s virtual form. We hope that you, our reader, will view both forms of publication equally. We do, and we have made a conscious effort to encourage you to experience both. The inclusion of this online-only work here and in this way is part of that conscious effort. —The Editorial Staff

To read “The Shaping of an American Ideal” please visit our website: gmreview.gmu.edu

The George Mason Review

Dating Advice from Philosophers Bob Bosnell Major: English

About the Work: If the pun is the lowest form of humor, satire must be the highest. Satire is a delicate form of humor; if you hew too closely to your source material, there is no originality. If you veer too far, there is no humor, no savor. Most of all, when using satire, one must use a deft touch. To borrow a phrase, “satire is a scalpel, not a bludgeon”. When I chose to write this particular article, I was inspired by a course on Eastern religion and philosophy. While it was outside of my normal discipline of literature studies, it provided me with an opportunity to expand my personal studies of Western philosophers to a more global scale. After reading several Eastern philosophers, in particular the works of Confucius and Sun-Tzu, I noticed that many of these philosophers (both East and West) had a great deal of advice to offer on all aspects of life except for one: they didn’t have any advice to offer in the realm of love. Yet these days it seems that love advice is in every newspaper, on every radio, on every television. It seems everyone has advice to offer on love. If these are the greatest thinkers of all time, why shouldn’t they offer love advice? And so I took it upon my humble self to speak with their voice and offer the advice that they might give. Using the tools of literary analysis and my own understanding of their philosophies, I did my best to craft situations and responses that would be in accord with some of their best known works. In particular, when writing for Nietzsche I was not intimately familiar with his writing beyond a very broad sense, and so I relied on pulling together a series of direct quotes (deliberately taken out of context and rearranged) to create a sort of “found poetry” of satire. I hope the result was written with a properly deft hand, and that it is in fact the scalpel I had intended to use.

Dating Advice from Philosophers

Niccolo Machiavelli Dear Machiavelli, My friends want to throw me a bachelor party. Knowing them, it will involve strippers, booze, drugs, the works. I promised my fiancée I would stay away from that kind of stuff, but I’m really tempted to go, and I’d hate to let the guys down. What should I do? Signed, Tempted My Liege, I am unsure how to advise you in this instance, for your status in this world has much bearing on the matter. Are you a common man, or are you a prince? For it is well known that those actions which are considered most virtuous in a common man are, in fact, a vice in a prince; and that which would be vice for the lowest laborer is, in fact, raised to holy virtue when undertaken by a prince. Be you of the lower classes, stay true to your course and all will be well. Be you my liege, I pray you, indulge yourself.

Adam Smith

Dear Adam Smith, I’m meeting a girl for a first date, and I’m not sure what I should bring. I know tradition calls for flowers and chocolates, but do modern ladies still go for that sort of thing? Or would I just come across old fashioned? Signed, Lonely and Confused Dear Consumer, The women of this age are as they have always been and as they shall always be: a part of the broader tapestry of our economic fabric. To deny that is to deny the truth of what makes all nations mighty. If you would impress and woo the lady, I would suggest you show her that you care for your nation by supporting the lifeblood of the nation: commerce. Support the florist, the chocolatier, yea, even the dressmaker and the milliner. In this way you shall prove you are a great philanthropist as well as a mighty provider.

The George Mason Review

Friedrich Nietzsche Dear Nietzsche, My girlfriend and I have been together for over two years, and we love each other very much. I’m thinking about proposing, but there’s just one problem. Ever since she was a little girl, she’s had this dream of a big church wedding. I’m agnostic, and both of my parents are atheists. I just don’t see that working out. Can you help? Signed, In Love but Not In Church Dear Superman, Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances. Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves? It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes. What I’m saying here is just rent out the local VFW Hall.

Plato Dear Plato, My boyfriend cheated on me a few months ago, and I just can’t seem to let it go. I still care about him, but I can’t get past this, and it is ruining our relationship. Should I forgive him or should I move on? Signed, Torn Dear Prisoner, What you fail to understand is that your concerns are not real. They are simply the shadows of old wounds that you cling to out of fear of losing the illusions you have lived with all your life. Throw off the shackles of your fear, and acknowledge that that which torments you is naught but a specter cast by the flickering light of a neon vacancy sign. Do not turn your anger on those who would drag you into the light of truth, but rather on the one who has, in truth, earned it, and kick him to the curb. missive of alliance, stating your intentions indirectly yet plainly, constraining your opponent’s choices to those that you would find most favorable: “Do you like me? Yes_ Very Much_”

Dating Advice from Philosophers

Sun Tzu Dear Sun Tzu, My name is Jenny and I am eight years old and there’s a boy I really like and I don’t know if he likes me back and I don’t know how to ask him if he likes me and I was wondering if you could tell me how I should ask him. Thank you very much for you help. Your freind, Jenny Dear Jen Ni, The strong warrior charges in like an ox; the wise warrior is subtle and flows like water. To gauge your opponent’s intentions, send your most trusted lieutenant forward on a scouting mission to determine where he lies. If conditions seem favorable, I would suggest you send a missive of alliance, stating your intentions indirectly yet plainly, constraining your opponent’s choices to those that you would find most favorable: “Do you like me? Yes_ Very Much_”

The George Mason Review

Puck and The Duke Alana Hackes Major: English

About the Work:

The current paper was written for one of the Shakespeare courses that focused specifically on the Shakespeare’s comedies and histories. This class was reading intensive but encouraged discussion and interpretation. The goal of the class was to integrate what we knew about Shakespeare as an author with our reading of the plays he wrote. As a writer, Shakespeare let his opinions on society and historical figures dictate how many of his plays were written, but would write them in a subtle fashion. His plays were written in this fashion so that they could be subversive but without having to be shut down for being offensive for those who were in power. When Shakespeare’s plays became widespread, he, himself, began to hold a certain power over the people that would come to see his plays. He would use certain characters in his plays that could control the fate of other characters, therefore reflecting his own authority over the audience by writing plays that could lead them to laugh or cry. Although he held a lot of power over the people that appreciated his plays, this did not change the fact that he had to uphold a certain image to his superiors who could have arrested him and shut down his plays for any inappropriate content his plays may hold or the inappropriate conduct that would go on at the showings of his plays. As an English major and an aspiring novelist, I was interested in the way that Shakespeare was able to reflect his own beliefs and opinions within a text without having them dictate or affect the way people responded to his plays. For this literary analysis, I went through each play we had gone over in class, paying close attention to the characters who had the most influence in the direction of the plot. I first decided to focus on the two characters, Robin Goodfellow, otherwise known as Puck, from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Vincentio, otherwise known as the Duke, from “Measure for Measure” for writing my paper. As a result of the discussions we held in class, I felt these two characters would best showcase Shakespeare’s authority as an author while also the laws he had to work within when writing his work. I then went through each play, making note of any time Puck or the Duke had dialogue, before going back over my notes and seeing which quotes reflected Shakespeare best. After that, I wrote down the quotes that I felt fit with my idea for the paper and then better developed the argument I wished to explore within my paper. I wanted to use two different characters in order to show two sides of Shakespeare’s power over the people: that while he may have had power over the audience, he was only as powerful as the law would allow him to be with his work.

Puck and The Duke

It is no surprise that, when a writer creates characters, they are inspired to insert characteristics of themselves and their experiences to add certain aspects to their work. When it comes to a famous playwright like William Shakespeare, the tradition is no different. In the plays “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” and “Measure for Measure” in particular, Shakespeare implies certain aspects about himself as a writer through one character of each play. The two characters, Robin Goodfellow and Vincentio, give some perspective of Shakespeare as an author because they both play the role of “director” by instigating important events and actions that are taken amongst other characters, holding the authority that determines whether the audience laughs or cries, and alluding to the idea that there must be more to the story that only the author can know. It is from these characteristics that one can learn more about Shakespeare as an author and a playwright. In “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” Robin Goodfellow, otherwise known as Puck, plays a very important role throughout the entire play. He acts as a “director” or “puppet master” in the way that he is the cause for all the confusion and conflict amongst the rest of the characters. Puck willingly takes this position, even seeming to be thrilled by the idea of messing up the natural order of things in Act 3, Scene 1, when he spots Bottom and the rest of his crew preparing their play and states, What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here / So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen? / What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor— / An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause” (3.1.65-68). Puck not only makes fun of them, but also clearly sees himself in charge of whether things go right or wrong for these characters. In doing this, Puck is showing that he has the authority to command the fate of these characters as he sees fit, which resembles the authority Shakespeare has as an author. Shakespeare determines whether things go right or wrong, thus automatically putting him in charge as to whether the audience is happy or sad. Just as Puck treats Bottom and his friends as puppets for his own amusement, Shakespeare treats the audience as his puppet—he can decided to kill off a character to cause uneasiness or sadness within the audience or he can decide to turn a character’s head into a donkey head for the audience’s amusement. Much of what occurs in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” however, is meant to lead the audience to laughter, with Puck and his shenanigans being the source. Within the play, the confusion and mishaps that occur involve Helena, Hermia, Demetrius, and Lysander, four characters whose love triangle becomes even more complicated by Puck using love potions to force people to fall in love. After accidentally causing Lysander to fall in love with Helena instead of Demetrius, Puck rights his wrong by bringing Helena over to where Demetrius rests so that when he awakens, he will fall in love with her. Puck finds the whole situation to be silly and remarks, “Shall we their fond pageant see? / Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (3.2.114-115). Puck sees these humans and their pesky love affairs as quite foolish. Part of the humor in this situation comes from the fact that humans have less authority than the fairies. The fairies have magical powers and the humans have nothing but intense emotions. The same idea holds true for Shakespeare as an author.

The George Mason Review

As a man who puts on plays that everyone hears about and wants to see, Shakespeare has more authority than the audience. The audience has nothing except for their emotions and their decision to either laugh at the tricks Puck plays, or regard them as mean and disapprove. Whatever way the audience reacts, however, is nothing in comparison to the authority Shakespeare holds as a famous playwright. Shakespeare has a brilliant enough mind to be able to write some of the greatest plays ever written, much like how the fairies hold the power to make people fall in love or have misshapen heads. No matter how the audience reacts, Shakespeare will always hold more power and authority due to his authorship. Despite how much power Shakespeare holds as an author, he is not able to write whatever he wants for, at the time, putting on plays were frowned upon and watching them was seen as wrong. Watching plays gathered people together where diseases could be exchanged and encouraged actions that were not publicly discussed (such as sex). Even with a brilliant mind, to be able to put on his plays, a lot of what he wrote had to be a compromise between selling tickets and adhering to the law. Nothing could be too scandalous, even though part of what made his plays successful was that they expressed desires that everyone had but were not open about. As a result, Shakespeare can only write within structures of the law. Puck, as a character, reflects the same predicament as Shakespeare’s since he is Oberon’s jester. Puck states this fact in Act 2, Scene 1 when he says, “I am that merry wanderer of the night. / I jest to Oberon, and make him smile” (2.1.43-44). Even though Puck holds the authority over the “mortals” he does not hold authority over his boss, the fairy king, Oberon. This idea of taking action based on appealing to both audiences and authority can also be related to the character, Vincentio, otherwise known as the Duke from “Measure for Measure.” Though being the Duke puts him in position of great power, he still has to uphold duties to both the people and the law. The problem that he faces, then, is that, in recent years, he has been appeasing the people rather than upholding the laws: he states, We have strict statues and more biting laws, / The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds, / Which for fourteen years we have let slip (1.3.19-21). As a result, he decides to disguise himself as a friar and put Angelo in charge, knowing that Angelo will enforce the laws more strictly and, thus, the Duke will not be accused of being a hypocrite. The Duke, the audience can then assume, is very much concerned with his appearance. This was not uncommon for kings to do at the time since kings believed that, to be in power, one must put on the proper “act” to do the job effectively. The same can be assumed for Shakespeare, for although he writes brilliant plays, no one person can know how much of it is written from the heart and how much of it is written to sell tickets. The Duke is a character that demonstrates one of the greatest conflicts an author faces: whether to write for himself or for the money it will make. There are many other characteristics of the Duke that are similar to Puck that represent other perspectives of Shakespeare as an author. Like Puck, the Duke plays an important role in the way things pan out for everyone, acting as the “director” for Isabella and her dilemma of whether to sleep with Angelo or

Puck and The Duke

to condemn her brother’s life. It is then in Act 3, Scene 1 that the Duke comes up with a plan to save Isabella’s brother, Claudio, by instructing her to do the following, Go you to Angelo, answer his requiring with a plausible obedience, agree with his demands to the point… and hear, by this is your saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana disadvantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled (3.1.235-245). Isabella barely questions the Duke’s advice and follows through with his plan immediately. This is yet another instance in which Shakespeare is representing himself as the leader and the audience as the obedient followers who listen to every word he writes in a play while also sitting on the edge of their seats. Another characteristic that is similar to Puck, but expressed differently, is that being the director not only means one is instructing people on what actions they take, but also that what the other characters and audience do not understand at that moment, will be understood someday in the future. Through the lines of the Duke in Act 5, Scene 1, he declares that, She, Claudio, that you wronged, look you restore. / Joy to you, Mariana. Love her, Angelo… So bring us to our palace, where we’ll show / What’s yet behind that’s meet you all should know” (5.1.518-532). In addition to telling Claudio that he must marry Juliet to right his wrong of impregnating her and telling Angelo to marry Mariana, he also acknowledges that while his actions might be ambiguous and make no sense, he promises his subjects, as well as the audience, that someday they will come to understand. This can be seen also be seen as a parallel to Shakespeare as an author, since being an author means having omniscient knowledge and not always revealing the meaning behind all events that occurred. It is through these two characters that any reader or audience can get an idea of what Shakespeare was like as an author and what influenced his decisions. The directorlike qualities both the Duke and Puck had, the differences in authority that are made apparent, and the ambiguity suggested at the end give the reader an idea of some of the opinions and thoughts Shakespeare had as a writer. There may not be a lot that is known for sure about Shakespeare, but anyone could certainly take a closer look at some of his characters to get a better idea of what he was truly like.

The George Mason Review

Persevere or Party? Mike Mateo

Major: Economics

About the Work:

The following paper was written as part of my semester studying Macroeconomics abroad at Oxford University. During this tutorial (course), I examined a specific (and different) topic in Macroeconomics each week for eight weeks. This style of learning is quite different than that of typical American universities. Each week, I was given a reading list (10-15 books) and an essay topic on the given subject. I read everything I could on the topic and wrote a 10-12 page research paper on said topic each week. At the end of the week, I would meet with my tutor (professor) and discuss the weekly topic as well as any relevant events that took place (i.e. the eurozone debt crisis, budget deficits, central bank issues, etc.). The focus of the paper is the effect that financial deregulation has on aggregate consumption. The paper begins by analyzing the effects of financial deregulation on classical consumption theory. Specifically, the paper analyses the Ricardian Equivalence, the Life Cycle Hypothesis, the Permanent Income Hypothesis, and the Random Walk Hypothesis. Then, the paper looks at some empirical evidence on the relationship between consumption and financial deregulation. Data on financial liberalization from the 1980s from both the US and UK are used to examine changes in consumption. Finally, the paper offers some thoughts on the possible indirect and future effects of financial deregulation. In particular, the paper highlights the possibility of increasing consumption while simultaneously increasing debt.

To Persevere or Party?

It is eight o’clock on a Friday. Whether you attended class or missed class all week, you need a reward, and what better reward than going out to a house party with your partners in crime. Your mouth salivates at the thought of what awaits you this evening. Maybe you’ll meet that chick you’ve been Facebook/Twitter stalking for the past two weeks, and as a result of a few cups of beer, she’ll dry hump you for a few songs, hopefully while wearing a provocative dress she passed off as appropriate. Or, if you’re not a monogamist, maybe you’ll pick up a flock of chicks and you’ll be that guy in the Facebook picture surrounded by a bevy of beautiful girls, and because of your presence, the picture has 104 “likes” all from the girls’ friends within four hours of being posted. Regardless of your ideology, you need to prepare yourself. Put yourself in a party state of mind. Why not pre¬game; it was proven by a University of Illinois’ study that a person with a blood alcohol above .07 is more creative than their sober counterparts (don’t worry, I did not chug a beer before writing this). So maybe you’ll wing it when it comes to pulling chicks. However, if you’re a man who likes to be prepared, make sure you have a repertoire of ice breaking lines. Chief among them should be: “So, what’s your major?” I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve either started or saved with that line. It is simple to remember, even after taking six shots of what has been offered at the rager, and most importantly, its effectiveness to intricacy ratio is very high. I assure you that it reaps high reward, but what do you do if the question is reciprocated? Should you lie and choose among the top three majors all girls are looking for: pre med, pre law, or business (you have to clarify that you will be procuring an MBA). Or, should you just tell her the truth and see if she’s drunk enough to retain interest in you. Regardless if you choose to be ethical or unethical, you should be aware of the gravity of choosing a major. During college it is utilized to pull girls, but in the future it will be utilized for something much more important, procuring means for living. However, the extent to which you can do the latter is determined on how efficiently (notice I said efficiently and not hard) you worked in college. After reading Frankenstein for my ENGH 201 class, the first thing that came to mind when prompted to answer what I took away from the book was Victor Frankenstein’s academic fervor. I envy Victor’s relentless pursuit in achieving his endeavors and I wish I had his indefatigable academic efforts. I am an economics major; rather I am pursuing a Bachelor Science in Economics with a managerial concentration. It’s mouth full, but girls are usually interested in it, more so than a simple economics major. In addition to pulling more girls, I was told that a B.A. in economics is too broad and won’t do me any good for graduate studies. However, sometimes I refrain from divulging my major out of fear of one day changing my major because the load was too overwhelming. I read compositions written my modern day economists and think to myself, “will I ever be as articulate and eloquent as they are?” A few weeks ago I ran into an old friend of mine and asked where he was planning on going to school. He modestly replied that he was going to Stanford, and his tone was so “NDB,” no big deal. I was amazed and bug¬eyed. I then declared him the future CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and he laughed, and in a serious tone he said, “Dude, I want to study physical therapy.” It’s people like him – people that score 2000s in their SATs, graduate with GPAs well above 4.0 and decide to study something as trivial as

The George Mason Review

physical therapy – that make me wonder if economics is the right fit for me. Now, I have no inherent hatred for physical therapy, but I have been taught enough economics to know that he is wasting his skills, and to throw down some econ jargon; he has high opportunity costs for pursuing physical therapy. The economy, as a whole, is worse off for two reasons: (1) my friend is not maximizing his skills (e.g. becoming a CEO) and (2) he’s crowding out the physical therapy market. As a result, someone who doesn’t have the skills to become a CEO now can’t become a physical therapist because my friend took the spot. Which brings me back to the picking up a chick conundrum. Instead of lying and claiming you are one of the three aforementioned majors, why not just pursue that major. Can you do it, or is it too much work? After reading Frankenstein I found myself comparing my love for economics and his love for natural philosophy, and questioning the sufficiency of my love to make a future out of economics. Victor, on the other hand, never questioned his ability, he may have regretted what he did, but he never capitulated to fatigue. In Frankenstein, on page 32, paragraph three, Victor says, “These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardor. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize.” Let us emphasize the last part, “… yet still clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize.” It was at this point that I realized that the extent to which one can complete a task is limited by their confidence. So if you’re confident enough to pick up a dimepiece, why not funnel that confidence into a major worth studying. With that said, instead of going out to a rager this Friday night, why not stay in and catch¬up on some academic work. Let us be realistic, although you’re behind in school, we all know you’ll chose to got out and grind.

To Persevere or Party?

The George Mason Review

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality: Career Obstacles For Chinese Businesswomen? Stephanie Tran

Major: Global Affairs

About the Work:

As an Honors College student and Global Affairs major with an Asian area concentration, I have long been interested in interdisciplinary research. When presented with the opportunity to conduct independent research funded by the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR)’s Students as Scholars program, I tried to find a topic that would cover my many interests: government, culture, sociology, gender, and economics to name a few. Although I have a general area concentration in Asia, I wanted to focus on a specific country that is influential and involved in current affairs. I had already written papers on women’s gender roles in the People’s Republic of China and wanted to expand on that research. Combined with my interests in gender studies as well as my business minor, I decided that my research should be focused on Chinese women’s leadership roles in China. After submitting a research proposal for and being accepted into OSCAR’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) and accompanying course, I started to research in earnest. had already formulated my research question for my proposal; I wanted to focus on Chinese businesswomen occupying leadership positions in their firms. I had already compiled a list of secondary sources to write up my research proposal, but I also wanted to keep my research current and up-to-date. In order to do so, I interviewed four George Mason University staff and faculty members, two men and two women, to gain a better understanding of my topic and confirm my own conclusions. All of the interviewees had worked and/or lived in China within that past twenty years and could give me on-the-ground information on Chinese women’s role in business. With my previous knowledge of Chinese culture and gender roles, I based my questions on interview research models and couched my research in management research and women in leadership studies. I combined my interviewees’ observations with the research I had gained from my secondary sources and wrote up my research to present it at the end of my URSP course. Throughout the process I regularly checked in with my faculty mentor, Dr. John Paden, and my URSP course instructor, Professor Rebbecca Jones, so that I could keep my research on track and going in the right direction. With their guidance, I completed and presented my research at the URSP consortium at the end of the semester.

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality

Introduction The global gender gap is perhaps most obvious in the lack of women in leadership positions in businesses around the world, but the causes are not always clear. Leadership theorists and proponents of the gender-centered perspective usually hold that gendered behavior is the cause of this phenomenon. Women in management researchers have also identified organizational structures and systemic influences as possible causes. Using E.A. Fagenson’s gender-organization-structure perspective, this paper seeks to assess whether the People’s Republic of China government, helped and hindered by employers and culture, negatively influences China’s business leadership gender gap. The People’s Republic of China currently has the world’s attention, rapidly developing to become the second richest nation after the United States. China’s increased economic success has also come with increased scrutiny. Despite governmental rhetoric and regulations promoting women’s equality and rights in the workplace, very few Chinese women occupy leadership positions in Chinese businesses. By examining the lack of female leaders in China’s business sector, this paper will shed light on the current political and economic status of China today using the lenses of human rights and gender roles. This paper particularly pertains to the frequent discussion of the relationship between China’s economic growth and its subsequent influence on the United States economy and will also provide an up-to-date profile on China to aid American understanding of China. The paper will open with a literature review of pertinent leadership style and women in business management theories as well as a brief discussion of China’s cultural and legislative background concerning women’s rights, equality, and presence in the workforce. We will then move on to a discussion of the paper’s methodology before turning to an examination and analysis of the case study followed by a brief conclusions section and list of references.

Literature Review Female Business Management Theories

Previous research into female business management has utilized a few popular theories: the organization structure perspective, the gender-centered perspective, and the genderorganization-structure perspective. The organization structure perspective rests on the idea that a company’s organizational structure influences and determines employee behavior and personality traits for job positions (Yukongdi and Benson 2005, 142). “Advantageous” jobs such as high-level management positions are occupied by the gender that is the majority in a company’s workplace. “Disadvantageous” positions are occupied by the gender in the minority. Individuals from each gender continue in their respective roles as their positions shape their behavior and personality to fit their job positions. Those occupying advantageous positions develop personalities and behaviors that allow them to succeed while those in disadvantageous positions develop personalities and behaviors that “reflect and justify their job situations” (Yukongdi and Benson 2005, 142). Applicants of the organization structure perspective usually interpret the theory as men continuing

The George Mason Review

to occupy the advantageous job positions while women continue to occupy the disadvantageous job positions (as cited in Yukongdi and Benson 2005, 142). The organization structure perspective’s failings are largely due to its focus on organizational structure as the single factor in explaining the leadership gender gap. True, it might serve to explain why the leadership gender gap may perpetuate if female employees are discriminated against as early as the hiring process (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 287), but the organization structure perspective does not entirely explain the disproportionately large leadership gender gap in the Chinese workforce where women made up about 40 per cent of the Chinese labor force in 2004 (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 284). The gender-centered perspective, an off-shoot of the organization structure, focuses on gendered behavior as well as organizational influences and variables. For instance, proponents of the gender-centered perspective believe that “women’s fear of success” prevents them from attaining leadership positions (as cited in Yukongdi and Benson 2005, 142). Proponents of this perspective therefore assume that gendered behavior makes women unsuitable for top management positions. This assumption, however, may be incorrect. In her examination of global female leaders, Adler (1997) argues that traits and behaviors that are frequently labeled as “feminine,” such as “empathy, helpfulness, caring, and nurturance; interpersonal sensitivity” as well as “participative, interactional, and relational” leadership styles (as qtd. in Adler 1997, 184), are not only compatible with leadership positions as the gendercentered perspective disputes, but actually beneficial and give female leaders what is called the “feminine advantage” (Adler 1997, 185). The gender-centered perspective therefore does not explain the lack of female leadership if female employees do indeed exhibit behaviors and qualifications that make them as competent as their male counterparts (discussed below). Even if we were to assume that the gender-centered perspective was correct in assuming that feminine behaviors were incompatible with leadership positions, by ignoring other factors, it still does not fully explain the global leadership gender-gap. The gender¬organizationsystem perspective seeks to fill these gaps left by the gender-centered and organization structure perspectives. Developed by E.A. Fagenson, the gender-organization-system perspective incorporates the gender-centered and the organization structure perspectives and focuses on the relationships between gendered behavior, the employing organization, and the larger society (Yukongdi and Benson 2005, 142). According to the genderorganization-system perspective, women are unable to occupy high-level positions due to their socialized and gendered behavior that make them unsuitable for top positions, their placement in disadvantaged job positions, and the societal expectations placed upon them that discourage occupation of top positions (Yukongdi and Benson 2005, 142-143). Fagenson’s theory, with its examination of gendered, organizational, as well as societal influences, incorporates the most factors and explains the lack of women in leadership positions very well. Although Fagenson’s gender-organization-system perspective is the best out of the three existing women in management schools, it lacks an analysis of governmental

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality

influence. The government as an institution does not fit neatly into any of Fagenson’s categories. If we are not addressing state-run firms, government is not classified as the “organization.” Neither is it purely society, especially in a country where society’s governmental involvement is limited to very specific pathways. China’s government in particular is not beholden to its citizens but instead passes rules and regulations that citizens are expected to follow. In sum, despite the advantages to Fagenson’s theory, I will use a modified version of his theory to conduct my analysis. To Fagenson’s gender-organization-system perspective I will add the influence of the institution. In this case, I will specifically address the government as an institution. The “gender¬organization-system-institution perspective” may be a little lengthy, but I think it more accurately represents the factors involved in this analysis. We must first start with a brief overview of China’s cultural and historical background.

Cultural and Historical Background

The influence of Confucianism, a school of thought that emphasized hierarchy, obligation and harmony (Benson et al 2005, 288), on the formation of Chinese gender roles cannot be overstated. Indeed, it is often Confucianism that is seen to be the single largest cultural and systemic influence on maintaining the belief that Chinese women’s key responsibilities and roles lie within the household (Benson et al 2005, 288) as a mother and wife, a care-giver and home-maker (Aaltion and Huang 2007, 231; Bowen et al 2007, 270; Won Kim et al 2010, 941). Ideal Chinese women should be supportive of and subordinate to men (Cooke 2005, 149; Won Kim et al 2010, 941; Wolf 1985, 68, 103; Woo 1994, 283), whose primary role was that of the head of the household and single source of income. The Communist regime has been seeking to overturn the patriarchal aspects of Confucianism for about five decades. Since the Communist Party’s coming to power in 1949, the government has been calling for a gender-equal China where women “hold up half of heaven” and pushed to enact laws and regulations that encourage a greater number of women in the workforce as well as female leadership in all industries and sectors. Post-1949 legislation included large pushes for women’s equality in the workforce. Legislation addressing women’s rights in the workforce included the 1953 Labor Insurance Regulations of the People’s Republic of China and the 1955 Announcement on Female Workers’ Production Leave by the State Council (Cooke 2003, 335). A 1950’s policy sought to “replace” male with female workers in the commercial and service sectors while a policy enacted in the 1960’s and 1970’s established a set quota of men and women in job allocations (Cooke 2003, 335). China’s opening up period and the policies that accompanied it caused a disproportionate amount of Chinese women to lose their jobs (Berik et al 2007, 12; Cooke 2003, 340). Accordingly, subsequent legislation and policies enacted from 1978 to 2001 sought to reverse the destructive effects of the 1978 period of economic reform on women’s employment. In the late 1990’s the Ministry of Labor, All-China Women’s Federation, other national institutions jointly issued policies to promote the re-employment of laid-off female workers (Cooke 2003, 336), perhaps to counteract

The George Mason Review

the disproportionate amount of lay-offs of female workers during the 1980’s period of economic reform (Berik et al 2007, 12; Ding, Dong, and Li 2009, 168). Government subsidies and laws enacted in the mid1990’s to help female employees with childcare responsibilities (Cooke 2003, 336) were soon taken away during the opening-up period. Legislation largely focused on protecting female labor, rights, and interests, but evidence of the effectiveness of this movement is severely lacking. Government policies, however, only addressed the symptoms of the wider problem of female discrimination. The oversights and failings of the legislation shall be explored in detail in the case study and analysis sections below.

Methodology The People’s Republic of China is perhaps the most interesting case study to use when examining the global gender gap. Until recently, the lack of women in positions of leadership in China’s businesses have not been examined with most sources, such as Fang Lee Cooke’s work and Xian and Woodhams’ and Benson and Yukongdi’s studies, stemming from the early 2000’s. As China has come to the forefront of world politics and economics, however, it has also come under more analysis. What, researchers seem to ask, is China doing right? What is it doing wrong? The reoccurring topic of China during the U.S. presidential elections in November 2012 has only cemented its focus in the media. China’s treatment of women in the workplace is both contradictory and complicated. On the one hand, the Chinese government has supported women’s equality since the establishment of the current Chinese regime in 1949 (Cooke 2003, 334). Women made up 40 percent of China’s workforce in 2004 (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 284) and are protected by a number of rules and regulations (see above). On the other hand, the assumption that female-friendly countries or companies would elect or hire more female leaders respectively is incorrect (Adler 1997, 185). As discussed above, despite the Chinese government’s efforts to prevent such behavior, discrimination against women in China is still present. Systemic influences in the form of cultural notions still largely influence societal expectations as well as gendered behavior. This beliefs, particularly the views that women are inherently subordinate to or not as capable as men, often appear in the workplace and clearly appear in the research for this paper. This paper seeks to examine how these systemic influences and organizational structures in the form of continuing societal beliefs and hiring, employment and retirement practices prevent Chinese businesswomen from acquiring leadership positions in their workplace. This paper will therefore utilize existing leadership style theories as well as women in business management studies to examine the lack of Chinese businesswomen in leadership positions. A large portion of the studies will therefore come from secondary sources in the form of books and scholarly journal articles, but the researcher also used a narrative method to interview George Mason University faculty and staff who have spent time working with Chinese businesspeople in China or in the United States. Unfortunately the time and financial constraints of this semester research program has limited the interviews to a handful of sources, but subsequent research into this topic

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality

would do well to conduct more interviews to gain a better perspective of the issue. The interviews selected for this research came from the George Mason University community and speak independently from the organizations that they work for. The four participants were adults between the ages of 31 and 45 and 46 and older. All four participants were university graduates and acquired Masters in various fields. Three of the participants were American and one was Chinese. The participants were divided neatly in half by gender with two women and two men interviewed. The data collected from the participants was qualitative and generally guided by interview questions on their educational and professional background before moving on to a more open-ended discussion of their observations of Chinese business behaviors and cultural attitudes. Interviews generally lasted for at least half an hour and were conducted in the participants’ offices. The participants were also kind enough to allow their names and observations to be quoted by proxy in this paper. A brief summary of each participant’s proxy name and information is included below.

Proxy Name Employment Sector Position Associate Professor Y.L. Academic Area Specialist A.M. Private Director of ChinaM.R. Academic Related Programs

K.S.

Private

Executive Director

Gender Age Range F

31-45

46 and over

With a review of the literature and the methodology, we shall now turn to this paper’s case study of this paper: Chinese businesswomen’s access, or lack thereof, to leadership positions in China’s business sector. To do so, we will use Fagenson’s genderorganization-structure perspective as our method of analysis.

Case Study, Evidence, And Analyses Structural and Organizational Influences

The dynamic between the systemic impact of social expectations and organizational behavior reveals itself in the form of the influence of Confucianism and other traditional and cultural beliefs on the organizational practices of Chinese businesses. Institutionalized discrimination by employers against women starts as early as the hiring process. Certain industries, for instance, are deemed “appropriate” for women, leading to gender segregation with women predominately working in industries such as the service sector (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 286; Cooke 2003, 340; Cooke 2005, 155-156; Zhou and Moen 2001, 346). The overall perception that men are more costeffective than women also leads to a preference for male employees who are perceived to be “more capable” than their female counterparts” with “higher participation rates, stronger adaptability, better mobility and attendance records, and a longer working life” (Cooke 2003, 338). Many of these characteristics, however, are artificially created and produced by government regulations or organizational practices or reinforced through cultural and societal expectations. Even if female applicants are as competent as their male competition, they are

The George Mason Review

usually passed over during the hiring process due to perception that women are not as qualified as their male counterparts. Female university graduates and post-graduates looking for work in 2003 were more likely to be discriminated, degraded, and rejected than their male counterparts (Cooke 2003, 339). Some employers go so far as to block or deter women from applying by posting specific requirements in job advertisements due to the perception that women, having child-care responsibilities, are not as productive as men (Cooke 2003, 338). For instance, it is not uncommon for employers to specify applicants from certain age groups to restrict married women with children from applying or even request applicants to submit photos of themselves (Cooke 2003, 338, 340). Young female Chinese graduates also come up against informal obstacles when seeking employment. Social networks, called “guanxi,” remain an important means of ascending the corporate ladder in China. Unfortunately for female employees, these network connections are traditionally created between male employees or families while off-hour networking activities such as drinking and going to bathhouses do not include women. The Chinese notion of “mianzi,” or face, also influences how employees interact with each other. Successful female entrepreneurs, for instance, stated that they allowed their husbands or male partners to “deal with on external affairs to allow him ‘face’” even if the female partner had established the business contact in the first place (Cooke 2005, 156). This sort of behavior reflects the traditional view of women as subordinate to men, more closely linked to the home than to the workplace, and highlights the view of successful female leaders as almost threatening male co-workers’ reputations. Chinese women in the workforce are also disadvantaged by systemic influences in the form of cultural expectations as well as discriminatory organizational practices. Traditional cultural ideas about women’s role in the home have combined with the modern expectation that Chinese women should work to create a “working mother” norm in China which is reinforced by the collectivist qualities of Chinese culture so that stay-home mothers or childless career women are in the minority. The pressures of both the home and the work therefore create a “double-life” burden on many working women. Chinese working mothers found themselves carrying the “double-burden” of being the primary homemaker as well as an employee and often found themselves downsizing to part-time work or giving up employment entirely6 (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 286). Even today female employees are expected to be responsible for housework, childcare, and eldercare and are criticized if they are found lacking in this department no matter their performance in the workplace (Aaltion and Huang 2007, 236). Methods of dealing with the “double-life” burden vary. Families that can afford hiring help frequently hire nannies, but parents who prefer to have family members take care of their children or cannot afford nannies frequently bring grandparents into the home. While a temporary fix, this solution also leads to an eventual need for eldercare, increasing the “double-life” burden on working mothers. A 2002 study, for instance, found that over half of the female entrepreneurs surveyed were responsible for eldercare withing their household (cited in Cooke 2005, 156). The added pressure of eldercare as well as childcare which eventually leads to increased pressure for working women

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality

to retire early in order to take care of their elderly parents and/or in-laws (Cooke 2005, 156). Despite the underlying cultural understanding that women are primarily responsible for housework and childcare, organizational performance measurement methods unfairly judge female employees without taking female employees’ “doublelife” into consideration. “Double-life” pressures are particularly difficult for women in industries requiring a large amount of overtime such as the IT sector (Aaltion and Huang 2007, 237) while expensive employment benefits for working mothers often cause employers to terminate female employment earlier and make them less likely to hire, “recruit, train, and promote female workers” (Cooke 2003, 344). Absenteeism data is also frequently used to “assess the commitment of...women [who are] applying for promotion” (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 287) even if they inaccurately measure women’s participation against men’s. Discrimination against women is also reflected in the disproportionate gender gap among leadership positions in China’s business sector. As Cooke (2005) cites, leadership opportunities for women “may be undermined by the deeply embedded Chinese social convention in which women are widely expected to play a supporting role to men” (149). For example, although there is a disproportionate amount of women employed in supporting, low level, (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 288; Cooke 2003, 340), or laborintensive positions (Burda 2007, 262) while there is a severe lack of female leadership in Chinese businesses: in 1993 nearly 20 percent of men surveyed were managers, but only 7 percent of women were (Zhou and Moen 2001, 346). Two years later, the gap had widened: in 1995, 19 per cent of Chinese men surveyed were in managerial positions while only 2 percent of women were in similar positions (cited in Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 285).

Gendered Influences

Discriminatory cultural views such as gender stereotyping is common among Chinese employees and often causes employees to downplay or dismiss female workers’ accomplishments. Male co-workers, for instance, tend to view men as more capable than women (as cited in Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 288; Cooke 2003, 338). Even some high-ranking female managers do not view themselves as successful as their male counterparts (Xian and Woodhams 2008, 415). These successful female managers also tended to play down their successes or to attribute them to luck or circumstances (415-416). These statements seem to be linked to socialized expectations of female gendered behavior, specifically, the expectation that women should be modest. Chinese businesswomen could potentially offset negative gender stereotyping by exhibiting positive “feminine” traits. For instance, Adler’s (1997) exploration of female leaders as being “driven” by vision, not ambition (189), may also be linked to this same socialized modest mindset. Successful Chinese businesswomen could be exploiting this gendered expectation by representing themselves to be working for the greater good, not for themselves as individuals. The vision-driven goals of the women that Adler (1997) examined (189) also seemed similar to the “transformational” leadership style that seeks to motivate subordinates by appealing to “higher ideals and moral values” (Chen et al 2010, 249). A

The George Mason Review

similar study among cadres, factory workers, teachers, college students, and technicians found that despite the variety of occupations, all participants rated personal morality as very important (Ling, Chia, and Fang 2000, 732, 737). Ling et al’s study (2000) also found that interpersonal skills, typically seen as being a “feminine” trait (Adler 1997, 185), were highly-valued among those surveyed (737). Although there were some variations in the ratings of trait importance by age, occupation, and education, the status of interpersonal skills as the third highest-valued leadership trait (Ling et al 2000, 737) still indicate that such a “feminine” trait is not considered to be negative when exercised in a leadership style. If we take Ling et al’s and Chen et al’s studies into consideration, we might hypothesize then that traits typically or culturally seen as “feminine,” such as morality and interpersonal skills, are being viewed as positive leadership traits. We could also hypothesize that the female managers using transformational leadership style, with its emphasis on “virtue” and parallels with the cultural Chinese emphasis for “virtuous” women (Won Kim et al 2010, 941), could prove popular among subordinates. Perhaps Adler is indeed right in believing that that the “feminine” leadership style is now valued on its own terms enough to offset female discrimination. Some recent study conclusions (Chen et al’s 2010, 249; Liu, Comer, and Dubinsky 2001, 307; Ling et al 2000, 732-733) do seem to indicate that personality traits typically seen as “feminine” (such as inter-relational skills and morality) are becoming valued as leadership traits, giving women the “feminine advantage” that Adler (1997) mentions (185). Positive “feminine” characteristics could also be combined with traditionally “masculine” traits to create a gender-neutral leadership style to off-set the negative gender stereotyping of female Chinese employees. Female IT managers interviewed by Aaltion and Huang (2007), for instance, attributed their success to their use of both positive “feminine” and “masculine” traits and characteristics (234). Aaltion and Huang’s (2007) interviews with female IT managers indicated that an androgynous leadership style was considered to be ideal and proved popular among those surveyed (237). If positive leadership traits are eventually seen as being gender-neutral, perhaps the selection process for leadership positions will eventually be gender-neutral as well.

Governmental Influences

In opposition to the traditional patriarchy of the pre-Communist era. a gender-neutral China was heavily encouraged during the Maoist period from 1949 to 1976. In Mao’s mind, “gender equality” meant “gender neutrality.” As discussed in the literature review, the Chinese government’s policies at that time aimed to promote gender equality and encourage the role of women in the workforce. Ironically, however, with no enforcement from the government and little support from employers, these policies did little to help or actually harmed Chinese businesswomen’s careers. The well-meaning but ultimately negative consequences stemming from government policies follows the economic idea of “unintended consequences” which purports that governmental interference in the economic market leads to unforseen events, usually negative. Policies enacted in the People’s Republic of China during the 1960’s and 1970’s, for instance, sought to place women in leadership roles (Cooke 2001, 335). The legislation, however, only encouraged the notion that women “were promoted

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality

to fill a quota rather than because of their competence and leadership skills” (Xian and Woodhams 2008, 411). With the opening period beginning in 1978, policies concerning female workers’ rights also contained many legal loopholes that allowed discrimination to continue. Women seeking work, for instance, have no legal means of addressing discrimination during the hiring process (Cooke 2003, 339). Unfettered by legal battles and able to exploit loopholes in governmental laws and regulations, employers continue to engage in discriminatory employment practices. Other regulations rely on subjective terms. The 1992 PRC Law on Protecting Womens’ Rights and Interests” (1992), for instance, stipulates if an occupation or post was “suitable for women, employers “could not reject female candidates on ground of sex or raise the recruitment standard for women’” (338). The idea of “suitability,” however, is subjective. As discussed earlier, certain industries are informally closed to women based on the “appropriateness” of their employment. A lack of policy enforcement as well as monitoring mechanisms also allows discrimination to continue. Instead, monitoring and enforcement is left to other groups within the organization. As the Chinese government views workers as “the owners of the country,” discrimination and employment issues are supposed to be handled internally organizations (Cooke 2001, 345). Trade unions, for instance, are responsible for monitoring corporations, but usually lack the resources and knowledge to do so. Private companies are also required to set up these workers’ unions, but frequently do not. “[S]upervising departments” within an organization are then expected to fix any problems (Cooke 2001, 345). Unconstrained by state policy enforcement, firm power is exercised unchecked. China’s Labor Bureau, for instance, lacks the people and resources to impose fines on the companies who are found to not be keeping to the regulations. Chinese women seeking leadership positions are also disadvantaged by government retirement policies that require women to retire a full five years before their male counterparts, placing them at a distinct disadvantage (Cooke 2003, 342). Combined with the time female employees frequently take off to fulfill their childcare responsibilities, a university graduate may find her work life shortened up to 15 years (Cooke 2003, 343). Female managers of higher rank may be allowed to stay on until age 60, but are forced to retire according to governmental policy, not personal choice (Cooke 2003, 343). By regulating the length of women’s work lives, government policies reduce even successful female employees’ retirement income and make them less likely to be promoted or trained for higher positions (Cooke 2003, 343). If male employees are perceived to have “higher participation rates, better...attendance records, and a longer working life” (Cooke 2003, 338), it is only because they are not subject to the same pressures and discriminatory policies as their female counterparts. In sum, the Chinese government fails to support or even harms Chinese businesswomen in all aspects of their careers.

Conclusions With the continued influence of traditional societal expectations, governmental rules and regulations in the People’s Republic in China do little to diminish discriminatory organizational structures that prevent Chinese businesswomen from acquiring positions

The George Mason Review

of leadership. Those who do succeed find that they must either subvert the traditional gender roles established by society emphasizing positive and traditional “feminine” traits or working around societal gender notions entirely by combining “feminine” and “masculine” characteristics to create an androgynous leadership style. In both situations, Chinese businesswomen offset negative gender stereotyping as well as societal expectations. In order to truly succeed, however, female Chinese managers need to be accepted by society (Bowen et al 2007, 277) and to do so, they must be fully supported by the Chinese government: successful legislation can help to propagate new social norms and practices (Benson and Yukongdi 2005, 289) and possibly deter unfair organizational practices. The Chinese government’s lack of enforcement and monitoring mechanisms as well as its failure to address the underlying cultural and societal expectations causing gendered discrimination prevent women from acquiring leadership positions in any Chinese sector is the root of the problem. Although the male-centered nature of Chinese networking seem to be diminishing among younger generations9 and cosmopolitan areas such as Hong Kong and Shanghai10 indicate off-hour activities seem to equalize the genders,11 true cultural value shifts can only be accomplished if enacted and enforced by the government and reflected in organizational practices. What does the future hold for all aspiring Chinese businesswomen? As China continues on with its economic development, Chinese businesses and culture will be more exposed to other ideas and business practices. Further research into Chinese women in management as well as the influence of Chinese women themselves may well contribute to creating a more open and accepting business culture for Chinese businesswomen seeking to hold leadership positions. Further assessment of gender discrimination in educational systems and Chinese womens’ changing ideas about sexuality and independence may also help to shed light on other influences besides the government’s on Chinese businesswomen’s leadership goals. At the moment, the government of the People’s Republic of China, lacks proper enforcement to make any real changes to cultural beliefs and organizational practices that continue to prevent Chinese businesswomen from obtaining leadership positions in Chinese businesses.

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality

The George Mason Review

The Dark Side of Albania: Exploring Human Trafficking Leslie Steiger

Major: Psychology BA

About the Work:

I recently took an undergrad course on human trafficking which influenced me to write this scholarly research paper. The research of this paper focuses on human trafficking, specifically in Albania, and how it has emerged under the radar. Human trafficking has opened up my eyes to the terrors that go on in this world unnoticed. This topic is important for anyone and everyone to be aware of. The paper exemplifies the issue and shows the importance of worldly matters that continue in society today. I decided to write about Albania because it is a foreign country that was featured in the movie Taken (2008) and also to show how human trafficking is evident all over the world not only in the United States. The paper is written in the format of: (1) explaining the issue, including how it emerged; (2) talking about the victims; (3) the business aspect of trafficking and (4) concluding with a solution. I hope that this paper will inform the readers of the modern slavery that goes on 365 days a year worldwide. The first step in making a difference is to spread the word.

The Dark Side of Albania

Human trafficking is evident in many countries of the world today. This underground business is a major problem that the modern world faces even though many efforts exist to combat it. Trafficking goes easily unnoticed in society; the fact is it blends in. Research on trafficking in the United States is more advanced than that of lessdeveloped countries in the world. One country in particular that not everyone knows much about, especially in the black-market of trafficking is Albania. Albania is located in Western Europe with a population of almost three million people, where its inhabitants speak Albanian, the capital is Tirana, the land is made up of mountains, and the country boarders the Adriatic Sea (Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, 2012). At first glance, foreigners may not be aware of what occurs under the radar. However, there is a dark side that takes place: human trafficking. The problem of trafficking has arisen from government control that the country exhibited. According to PBS (2003), “Albania was an economic ruin when it emerged 12 years ago from the ironfisted rule of communist dictator Enver Hoxha”. This left the country vulnerable to trafficking, smuggling and other crimes. The Albanian government has estimated that between 1991 and 1999 the number of Albanian women and girls trafficked to other Western European countries and other Balkan countries for sexual exploitation numbered around 100,000 (PBS, 2003). Those 100,000 individuals have had to suffer from this huge worldwide problem, ultimately resulting from an inadequate government. According to the U.S. Department of State (2012), the Albanian government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for combatting trafficking. This qualifies the Albanian government as a tier two country. In addition, corruption among police and elected officials is high which will not contribute to the prosecution of traffickers (PBS, 2003). This means that not all law enforcement can be trusted which can had negative impacts in combatting traffickers. Positive government actions are imperative for combating the sex trafficking industry. From a lack of administration’s power, trafficking continues over time and victims are added to the list as years pass. The issue of trafficking affects the victims and their families the most. Poor areas of the country are vulnerable subjects for becoming involved in this dark crime. Families that did not make enough money would relocate or send their children out to bring home money. Albanian children would usually travel with a recruiter who was supposed to help them find work abroad but instead passed the child off to traffickers (Kane, 2005). These individuals are brought into the trade by force, fraud or coercion. According to Kane (2005), recruiters spend months convincing a girl to get ‘engaged’ or ‘married’; the ‘marriage’ will be arranged in Greece, the family is told, but instead the girl finds herself on a boat to Italy where she will be forced to provide sex services. Men, women and children are forced into sex trafficking, labor, and begging (United States Department of State, 2012). This statistic shows that not only women and girls are involved as victims; men also play a role in the human trafficking business. According to PBS (2003), the women and girls involved in this Albanian trade ranged in age from 14 to 35 and are among the youngest victims trafficked worldwide, with as many as 80 percent of them under 18. This shocking information is a reality. According to Kane 2005, “Adolescent girls trafficked into prostitution will most likely

The George Mason Review

end up exploited alongside adult prostitutes and be seen essentially as ‘young adults’, catering to the same client base as adult sex workers but satisfying social perceptions of youth and beauty.” The teens are treated no different than the adults. These women, teens and children are violated by the traffickers, committing acts against their will. The truth of the matter is that these victims are not treated as humans, they are treated as objects. In Italy, according to a 2001 Save the Children report, Albanian pimps reportedly expect their teen-aged prostitutes to earn between $200 and $550 a night (PBS, 2003). The pimps are the masterminds behind this dark business. They are in control of the women and girls that go out and prostitute on the streets. Most of the women never receive any of money that they make (PBS, 2003). The women are beaten and threatened to make them comply with the pimp’s demands. A main problem that these women face is that they do not know where to turn to get help and that they are scared. If a woman makes the wrong choice, her life could be at stake. Some girls that are convinced to get ‘engaged’ are pimped by their ‘fiancé’ or he will sell her to someone else (Kane, 2005). The girls are so vulnerable at a young age and are easily taken advantage of. The research that is available on trafficking in Albania is more important now than ever. With protection, prevention and prosecution efforts on the rise, the world can help stop this horrific industry. By looking into other countries and areas of the world, we can gain an understanding of what is taking place. Comparing the United States perspective with other foreign countries means there will be more efficient attempts to combat the problem. What goes on in other areas of the world is not so different from what happens here in the United States. Being able to replicate strategies that work here are significant for resolving this massive issue in other countries, one step at a time. Efforts to fight trafficking in Albania first must come from a government initiative. PBS (2003) stated, “In 2001, Albania made trafficking in women and children a criminal offense and adopted a national plan to fight human trafficking.” This shows that Albania recognizes there is problem and changed the law to do something about it; a big step in the right direction. According to the United States Department of State (2012), “During the year, the government increased its capacity to proactively identify trafficking victims, used its witness protection program to protect a trafficking victim, and provided short-term funding for NGOs to help victims.” With the help of NGO’s trafficking victims will be able to find shelter and rescue. According to PBS (2003), “TV programs are broadcast to raise awareness about traffickers’ methods and the government has paired with NGOs to train teachers to educate students about the trafficking issue.” Educating the youth about risks of trafficking and signs to be aware of is a great way to spread the word for protection and prevention. The movie Taken (2008) is a prime example of showing the public what happens under the radar. Taken is a story about Albanian traffickers that kidnap teens for the sole purpose of prostitution. This movie was informative about how trafficking works, the demand for it, and how perpetrators get away with it. Taken is one of many ways to publicize the reality of human trafficking. The goal of reducing human trafficking will not be easy but it is attainable. The solution of how to resolve this burning issue is what needs attention.

The Dark Side of Albania

In conclusion, I personally believe that human trafficking can decrease but will never fully become extinct. Law enforcement agencies are on the rise prosecuting traffickers and taking the preliminary courses of action to prevent it. The solution that we need to focus on is combining methods that will work in all parts of the world to end this awful industry. Research and education are key components for finding effective solutions. We need to grasp an understanding as in depth as possible about why trafficking occurs to the extent that it does and find out how to shift the focus onto something else. For example, if trafficking results from the demand that humans have for the sex industry, how can we shift that demand to something else? These are the type of questions we need to start with. Once we have the answers, education comes into play and then taking action. With enough research, education, and action, prevention, protection and prosecution can be strengthened. In my opinion, the world is not a cruel place, the world is what we make of it and we can make it a beautiful place if we put the effort forth.

The George Mason Review

Famous Literature as Haiku Bob Bonsall Major: English

About the Work: I've noticed there are a lot of "great works of literature" that I have personally found to be somewhat impenetrable, to be a little too bloviated (for lack of a better word), and that just kind of ramble on. More than once reading them I felt that you could easily cut out large sections or segments of them and not only would they not suffer, they would be better off for it. One day I was thinking about this in particular regarding Atlas Shrugged and the Illiad, two works from vastly different authors and times, and it seemed to me we have learned nothing about being concise, about editing, about getting to the point, and it occurred to me there is a style of writing that has made an art form out of brevity, out of compactness, out of saying the most with the least: haiku. I mentioned this to a friend, and I jokingly suggested that I could summarize all of Atlas Shrugged as a haiku. He challenged me on the spot to do so, and so I did, and the next thing I knew I was doing the Illiad, as well, and from there I started wondering what other "great works of literature" could be summarized in such a brief form. The joke here is twofold: obviously there is a great deal missing (I'm not trying to suggest there isn't much more to each work than can be summarized in three lines), but on the other hand I was trying to make the point that when these great works that are so long in and of themselves, and have such a great body of work written around and about them, to be able to encapsulate the essence of what these works are, what their meaning is and what they are about in such a short, concise form, I felt there was not only humor to be had there, but perhaps even something profound to be said there. Is there really so very much there in them, or how much of it is authorial bloat?

As noted in our mission statement above, The George Mason Review has both a print and virtual form, and we have tried to select a number of works that best suit the GMR’s virtual form. We hope that you, our reader, will view both forms of publication equally. We do, and we have made a conscious effort to encourage you to experience both. The inclusion of this online-only work here and in this way is part of that conscious effort. —The Editorial Staff

To read “Famous Literature as Haiku” please visit our website: gmreview.gmu.edu

The George Mason Review

Glenn Gould in the Studio Thomas Mirus

Major: B.M. Jazz Studies

About the Work:

This paper was written for a music history course covering Western music from the 1890s to the present. I was already familiar with many of the recordings and writings of the classical pianist Glenn Gould, one of my musical heroes. For my research, I relied heavily upon the primary sources, Gouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own essays and interviews. In addition to the few most relevant essays, I read many of his writings on a variety of subjects, as well as all of the biographical materials I could find, in order to gain a deeper insight into his personality and the various paradoxes and nuances to be found in his worldview. His views on recording technology interest me as a student of the philosophy of art, but are also of very practical benefit, since I am a professional jazz pianist and will no doubt enter the recording studio myself more than a few times in the course of my career. As an improviser, I find his reflections on the nature of spontaneity thought-provoking and inspiring; still, precisely because I am an improviser, my experience of live performance is quite different from his. The paper is relevant not only to musicians, music listeners and recording engineers, but also to those who study the effects of technology on the arts and on human interaction in general. It simultaneously presents, analyzes and critiques Gouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s views and predictions about recording technology, without using terminology inaccessible to a lay audience. As ubiquitous as the recording techniques Gould championed have become, the philosophical, cultural, commercial and artistic implications of their use are still in many ways open to debate and certainly to further research. For the philosopher, there are books yet to be written on the nature of creative spontaneity and authenticity. For the historian, the tension between live performance and studio recording has yet to be resolved. The musician confronts the economic consequences of these issues in his daily life, and the questions of the philosopher and historian alike are answered anew in the body of work of every artist. Glenn Gouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is but one possible plan of navigation.

Glenn Gould in the Studio

“Four of the very best years of my life.”1 That was the way Glenn Gould described the four years since his retirement from the lifestyle of a concert pianist. In 1964, the young man who had stunned critics, musicians and general audiences the world over with the virtuosity, intensity, and brilliant interpretive heterodoxy of his performances bid an unceremonious farewell to the concert hall and never looked back.2 If Gould did look back, he never would have admitted it. “Isolation is the one sure way to human happiness,”3 he proclaimed. “My idea of happiness is two hundred and fifty days a year in a recording studio.”4 Indeed, a great deal of his time between his retirement in 1964 – just thirty-one years old – and his death in 1982 was spent in the studio, whether as a recording artist (he made over eighty recordings) or as a producer of numerous documentaries for radio and television.5 But as unconventional as his recordings could be, few things he did stirred up as much controversy as did his retirement from the concert life – or, more accurately, the reasons he gave for that retirement.6 For Glenn Gould believed that within a century, “the public concert as we know it” would be obsolete, and that the new electronic media would reign supreme in its place.7 He had never particularly enjoyed giving concerts in the first place – they made him “feel demeaned, like a vaudevillian,” they were exhausting, repetitive, detrimental to his health and creativity. Conditions were never ideal and the right piano was never available.8 What was more, much of the repertoire most suited to the acoustics and tradition of the concert hall was precisely the repertoire he most detested.9 (Gould often said that he had a “century-long blind spot approximately demarcated by The Art of the Fugue on one side and Tristan on the other.”10) On the other hand, much of his favorite music was unsuited for large venues, and when he attempted to perform, for example, J. S. Bach’s Fifth Partita in such an arena, he found that the interpretation became distorted by the necessity to project to a vast hall.11 He was also growing increasingly self-conscious and uncomfortable about the way critics were drawing attention to his well-known and eccentric habits and mannerisms, both in and out of the concert hall.12 Above all, Gould objected to the psychological and competitive aspects of public concerts, which he considered immoral. Audiences, he declared, were a “force of evil,” 13 and the concert hall “a comfortably upholstered extension of the Roman Colosseum.”14 He found the athletic, virtuosity-focused elements of music-making totally extraneous to its essential purpose. “A performance is not a contest but a love affair,”15 he insisted: The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.16 The opposite of this, to Gould, was the spirit of public performance, in which the performer seeks to be master of his audience, and vice versa; when asked by another great concert pianist, Arthur Rubinstein, if he had ever felt that he “had the souls” of the audience, he responded, “I didn’t really want their souls, you know.”17 Some have speculated that Gould’s decision to retire from public performances may have been partially motivated by a need to control every aspect of his life. Frequently

The George Mason Review

cited is an early experience in which he was frightened by his own rage at his mother in the course of an argument they were having, after which he resolved always to be in control of his emotions.18 Gould gave occasional indications that emotional selfcontrol (arguably repression in his case) was of great importance to him, notably his disturbing assertion that a war fought via computers is morally superior to one fought with spears, regardless of increased body count – simply because “the adrenal response of the participants… is less engaged by it.” Tellingly, Gould continued on to point out that recordings were a metaphor for this “disengagement from biological limitation.”¹⁹ His longtime recording engineer, producer and friend, Andrew Kazdin, theorized that this same need for control manifested itself in his need to control the course of his interviews (Gould rarely consented to an interview for which he had not written a complete script, and even interviewed himself on occasion). Kazdin believed that this tendency dovetailed with Gould’s preference for the studio environment over that of the concert hall, because it eliminated “spontaneity, the risk of a mishap.”²⁰ (Kazdin’s book on Gould, Glenn Gould at Work: Creative Lying, contains a lengthy and fascinating chapter about this and related aspects of Gould’s personality.) On the other hand, Gould was convinced that the recording process had its own kind of spontaneity, though perhaps a less risky one. In conversation with Rubinstein, he mused: The ideal way to go about making a performance or a work of art…is to assume that when you begin, you don’t quite know what it is about. …As you get two thirds of the way through a session, you are two thirds of the way along toward a conception. …It makes the performer very like the composer, really, because it gives him editorial afterthought.²¹ Rather than simply seeking complete control over the creative process, Gould wanted to allow the recording process itself to guide him creatively, as opposed to a concert situation, in which he would have to pretend to a complete or accurate conception of the piece before performing it, without the possibility of being corrected by hindsight. That is, as he wrote to one of his fans, “The real virtue of the recording process is not in its inherent perfectionism but in the after-thought control by which one can operate upon the raw material of performance.”²² Writing to another fan: I have, to be sure, gone on record many times as stating my preference for those sessions to which one can bring an almost dangerous degree of improvisatory open-mindedness – that is to say, sessions in relation to which one has no absolute, a priori, interpretive commitment and in which the process of recording will make itself felt in regard to the concept which evolves.²³ From this perspective, the studio is actually more conducive to spontaneity than the concert hall, though it is a different kind than that which Gould called the “‘Takeone-or-bust’ philosophy.” Instead of using the studio in a doomed attempt to mimic an earlier musical context (the public concert), Gould dreamed that the process of recording could “come into its own and make an original contribution to musical

Glenn Gould in the Studio

tradition.”²⁴ This was the idea on which he based much of his life’s work, and explored at length in interviews and essays such as “The Prospects of Recording.” In all this he was further influenced by the thought of Marshall McLuhan as well as that of Jean Le Moyne and Teilhard Pierre de Chardin, both of whom meditated on the theological implications of technology. Naturally, at the root of his conviction that recording was the ideal form of musical communication was his relief at having freed himself from the demands of a live audience, as he described in another letter: The lack of an audience…provides the greatest incentive to satisfy my own demands upon myself without consideration for, or qualification by, the intellectual appetite, or lack of it, on the part of the audience. My own view, is, paradoxically, that by pursuing the most narcissistic relation to artistic satisfaction one can best fulfil the fundamental obligation of the artist of giving pleasure to others.²⁵ And in the event that he failed to give pleasure, Gould was determined to fail fascinatingly: “I think that if there’s any excuse at all for making a recording it’s to do it differently, to approach the work from a totally recreative point of view, that one is going to perform this particular work as it has never been heard before.”²⁶ If Gould provoked controversy by predicting that the public concert would die out and be replaced by electronic media, he provoked at least as much of it by his endorsement of all manner of “dishonest” studio techniques, particularly that of splicing multiple takes together, thereby creating a final product that was not the result of a single, unbroken performance. Many in the classical world, particularly those of an older generation, considered this technique to be generally musically detrimental if occasionally a necessary evil, claiming that it was dishonest, that it disrupted the “long line” or the emotional cohesion of a performance, and similar complaints. Others, such as André Watts, considered recordings to be valuable only insofar as they simulated the concert experience, an ideal to which splicing would clearly be offensive.²⁷ Gould often replied to the latter objection with a metaphor between recorded music and the art of film – just as we do not expect films to conform to the technical requirements of the theatre, neither are recordings beholden to the traditions of the concert hall.²⁸ Few would contend that in film, dramatic cohesion is undermined by the use of multiple shots, perspectives, overdubs, or similar techniques – so if those techniques are used successfully in recorded music, why complain?²⁹ Gould was adamant that studio technicians can and should make recording a unique medium rather than trying merely to duplicate the concert experience, and objected to the notion that technology should be confined to disseminating objective facts; rather, in his view it should be used for “dissection, for analysis – above all, perhaps, for the idealization of an impression.” In other words, in a phrase reminiscent of Oscar Wilde, “if ‘the camera does not lie’…[it] must be taught to forthwith.”³⁰ At the objection that splices disrupt lines, Gould scoffed: “Splicing doesn’t damage lines. Good splices build good lines, and it shouldn’t much matter if one uses a splice every two seconds or none for an hour so long as the result appears to be a coherent whole.”³¹ And again: “One cannot ever splice style – one can only splice segments which relate to a conviction about style. And whether one arrives

The George Mason Review

at such a conviction pretaping or posttaping…its existence is what matters, not the means by which it is effected.”³² To demonstrate his claims, Gould undertook an experiment involving a broad selection of laymen, recording technicians and professional musicians to ascertain whether good splicing was easily detectable. As it turned out, the laymen were best at guessing where the splices had been in the recordings played for them, but overall, the participants guessed numerous splices where there were very few or none, and very few where there were many.³³ Gould scholar Kevin Bazzana relates that to assuage those who were under the impression that Gould pieced his recordings together practically one note at a time, Gould’s producers pointed out that he in fact “needed splicing less than most performers”³⁴ – no surprise, given his legendary technique and musical memory. Interestingly, Andrew Kazdin recalled that “small tempo changes that were unacceptable if caused by a splice were completely acceptable if they were part of his actual performance.”³⁵ While Gould had no scruples about splicing to fix occasional mistakes, more often he did it for interpretive purposes. In “The Prospects of Recording,” he explained how splicing was used in his recording of the fugue in A minor from the first book of J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Two out of eight complete takes were considered acceptable at first, but upon reviewing them weeks later, Gould and his recording team realized that both takes were “monotonous.” One treated the fugue subject in a “solemn legato, rather pompous fashion” while the other was more staccato and “skittish”; both were legitimate approaches, but neither would suffice for the entire piece. Realizing that by a happy coincidence, both takes were almost identical in tempo, they decided to combine the two. In the final product, the severe-sounding take is used for the exposition, followed by the lighter take for the development, after which the fugue terminates in the take used for the exposition. Gould admitted that these interpretive choices could have been made beforehand, but that the sort of realization they had weeks after the recording was unlikely during a studio session, just as it would be in concert. While this process requires that the performer cede some of his control to producers and editors, Gould noted, the editorial role as a natural extension of the performer’s interpretive capacity is well worth the exchange.³⁶ In situations in which the score called for a repeat, rather than performing the same section twice, Gould used a technique called “regeneration” – that is, he simply made a duplicate of the first performance and moved it to where the second should be.³⁷ Much less frequently, Gould made use of overdubbing, notably in the nearly unplayable fourth movement of Franz Liszt’s piano transcription of Beethoven’s fifth symphony. While Gould was capable of hitting all the notes, he decided a more musical result could be achieved by turning it into a four-hands performance via overdubbing. According to Andrew Kazdin, this was one out of only two instances of overdubbing in Gould’s entire recording career.³⁸ The recording techniques described above are most common in Gould’s recordings, but he experimented with others as well. In a letter to a fan, he described an experiment for quadraphonic sound system in which he recorded some Bach fugues one voice at a time, a procedure which he found artistically fulfilling and which he felt had allowed

Glenn Gould in the Studio

him an unprecedented level of insight into the works.³⁹ At another time, he tried placing microphones in different parts of a room and combining those different perspectives in the final recorded product, for an effect analogous to the combination of different camera perspectives and effects in film.⁴⁰ Gould made many observations about the implications of recording for professionals and audiences alike. He had already witnessed a revival of interest in preclassical music, and noted that it was especially appropriate for recordings which were made to be listened to in people’s homes to be focused on music that had been composed in the context of a strong amateur tradition – not only that, but such music was “made for stereo” because of its “contrapuntal extravaganzas” and “antiphonal balances.” Increased scholarly interest was given a concrete basis because of the recorded library of preclassical works, musicologists benefiting especially from the record archives of Renaissance and pre-Renaissance music: “The musicologist rather than the performer has become the key figure in the realization of this untapped repertoire.”⁴¹ Gould knew from experience that the recording artist’s approach to repertoire is dramatically different from that of the concert artist. The artist prepares for recording through “intense analysis” and prepares an interpretation of a work which he approaches more like a composer, dealing with it once and for all and then moving on to the next challenge. There is no need to keep it in his repertoire: “His analysis of the composition will not become distorted by overexposure, and his performance top-heavy with interpretive ‘niceties’ intended to woo the upper balcony, as is almost inevitably the case with the overplayed piece of concert repertoire.” Because of this, the artist is able to become familiar with a much greater variety and quantity of works. He can undertake projects of greater scope, such as recording the complete works of a composer, and is more likely to perform works which would be unsuitable for the concert hall.⁴² Recording also allows composers to make their intentions permanently known by making their own recordings of a work (Gould cites the examples of Benjamin Britten and Igor Stravinsky). Gould hoped that this would help to break down the distinction between performer and composer: “There is no reason why the performer must be exclusively involved with revisitations of the past, and the re-emergence of the performer-composer could be the beginning of the end for that post-Renaissance specialization with which tonal music has been conspicuously involved.”⁴³ The implications of recordings for non-musicians were also manifold. Gould observed that recordings had already made music more commonplace, less of an occasion for reverence, but at the same time, something people depend on even more. It was not lost on him that most people were now introduced to music through recordings, and that the experience of music for most people had become considerably more intimate and casual⁴⁴ – and more individual because that experience was more likely to be had in private. Gould expressed this as “that paradox wherein the ability to obtain in theory an audience of unprecedented numbers obtains in fact a limitless number of private auditions.”⁴⁵ The implication to Gould was that the listener would soon have the ability to do his own splicing, combining performances by different performers to create his own ideal interpretation.⁴⁶ The current practice of remixing songs in hip-hop and other genres of popular music, undermining the hierarchy Gould

The George Mason Review

so despised which set the artist above the “public,” shows exactly how prescient he was.⁴⁷ One of Gould’s critical pet peeves was the way works of art were often judged on biographical or historical interest rather than on their intrinsic value. He wrote about this in multiple essays, always bringing up the Dutch painter, Hans Van Meergeren, who convinced both the art establishment and, later, the Nazis, that his paintings in the style of Vermeer were real Vermeer works, newly discovered. After the Second World War, to defend himself against collaborationist charges for having sold these works to the Nazis, Van Meergeren revealed that the paintings were his own. The critical establishment was so enraged at having been fooled that they sent Van Meergeren to prison anyway, and he died there. Gould’s other favorite example was that if he improvised a sonata in Haydn’s style and passed it off as a newly discovered work by that composer, it would be praised by the critical establishment. But if the work were passed off as one by a later composer such as Brahms, it would seem less original and be valued less. On the other hand, if it were believed that the sonata was by Vivaldi, it would be given “a value greatly in excess of any held by a legitimate work of that composer” because of its “prophetic qualities” – because it would have been ahead of its time.⁴⁸ Gould believed that Richard Strauss, a composer whom he greatly admired, had been mistreated by critics simply because he continued to compose in a romantic idiom well into the twentieth century,⁴⁹ and in an essay entitled “Strauss and the Electronic Future,” he criticized the view which “has encouraged us to conceive of historical action in terms of a series of climaxes and to determine the virtues of artists according to the manner in which they participated in, or, better still, anticipated, the nearest climax.”⁵⁰ Gould hoped that this way of evaluating music would be abandoned because of recordings. Since it is possible to listen to a recording without knowing when it was recorded and precisely who performed, edited and produced it, there is a greater anonymity and abstraction from historical context involved in recordings, which, according to Gould, would force critics to judge pieces on intrinsic merit rather than in relation to historical circumstances.⁵¹ Unfortunately, this theory is completely implausible because it depends on the willingness of musicians, composers and record companies not to publish exhaustive information about their recordings. Gould’s criticisms of aesthetic progressivism are totally compelling, but it is nevertheless normal and good to desire historical and personal context for a work of art – and quite possible to enjoy the knowledge of that context without subscribing to one critical ideology or another. Clearly Gould’s pronouncements could be naïve at times. His discussion of the positive aspects of Muzak and other background music is thought-provoking, and it is interesting to consider his point that such idioms accustom listeners to a variety of sounds they would be far less likely to accept in other contexts (twelve-tone technique in horror films, impressionism in restaurant music). But even at the time of his writing, his starry-eyed optimism about the educational value of Muzak must have been hard to take seriously: The cliché residue of all the idioms employed in background becomes an intuitive part of our musical vocabulary. Consequently, in order to gain our attention any musical experience must be of a quite exceptional nature. And

Glenn Gould in the Studio

meanwhile, through this ingenious glossary, the listener achieves a direct associative experience of the post-Renaissance vocabulary, something that not even the most inventive music appreciation course would be able to afford him.⁵² The idea that being inundated with clichés might provide a solid foundation for musical judgment is rather counterintuitive – one might more reasonably assume that being inundated with clichés simply gives people a taste for clichés, or even more likely, that the presence of those clichés in background music might train people to hear the great music from which those clichés were drawn as background music itself, which is the attitude of many listeners towards classical music and jazz, and often towards all music. But Gould persisted: “We do not value great works of literature less because we, as men in the street, speak the language in which they happen to be written… To the contrary… [this familiarity] gives us background against which the foreground that is the habitat of the imaginative artist may stand in greater relief.”⁵³ But as popular as it has been over the centuries to equivocate music with language, human language existed before the first novel or poem was ever written, while a musical “language” is generally codified and abstracted only after the works said to use that language already exist. And even taking the analogy at face value, it is hardly necessary to belabor the point that the ability to speak and read in English does not guarantee one’s appreciation of Shakespeare any more than the ability to tell blue from red guarantees one’s appreciation of El Greco. Even Gould’s claim that “in the electronic age the art of music will become much more viably a part of our lives, much less an ornament to them, and that it will consequently change them much more profoundly,”⁵⁴ is dubious. Does music become more meaningful in our lives simply by becoming more commonplace? Or does it become even less vital and more ornamental when music as background noise is ubiquitous and musical performances are, as Gould was pleased to acknowledge, no longer occasions of reverence? But while some of his theories about the effects of recording technology on music’s place in society are hard to swallow, Gould was still extraordinarily perceptive as to the implications of recordings in the lives of musicians, and he used the studio most fruitfully in his own career, musical and otherwise. In addition to having been a brilliant pianist with a substantial legacy of recordings, Gould made his mark as a delightfully controversial figure who never failed to point out the flaws in the prevailing critical and aesthetic theories of his day, especially when they stood in the way of his single, simple goal: to make his music sound good – by any means necessary.

The George Mason Review

My Dollhouse Grace Foulke Major: Nursing

About the Work: My discipline for this piece is creative nonfiction. The inspiration behind this piece was a dream I had. My English professor assigned us homework where we had to write down a dream we had. I wrote down this one because I thought it was very metaphorical and it explained a lot of fears and anxieties I have. My family is moving from Virginia to California after living here for about twelve years. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve grown up here and I have made so many friends and had great experiences, and I have anxieties that moving will make me forget people, or experiences I have had. In the dream, the Dollhouse held all of my memories of my past, in Virginia or not, and I visited these moments in my dream. Family is a very important aspect in my life and they were there to support me in my dream, as well as my whole life. In the dream, I learned that letting go of the past is the only way one can move forward in life, and moving on doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean forgetting people or experiences, for those make you who you are. I hope readers will be able to gather that this is a personal piece, and understand the dreamlike feel behind it. The imagery used in this piece allows the audience to visualize the setting and helps project the dreamlike state. I hope that readers enjoy the piece and understand the importance of pushing oneself forward and learn from the past in order to make a better future.

To read “My Dollhouse” please visit our website: gmreview.gmu.edu

The George Mason Review

Can Professor Layton Teach Us? Crista Leonard Major: Undeclared

About the Work:

This work is a research paper completed for my composition class. This class is an English class that practices in drafting, revising, and editing expository essays and preparing research papers. It fulfills the general education requirement in written communication. I am a freshmen with an undeclared major but I am working towards an art major. I started my process of writing my paper by first coming up with what issue I wanted to focus on. With this research paper I was to take an issue of my choice and write a convincing essay backed up with evidence on my stance on the issue. As it was my first semester of college I was amazed by the different teaching methods and atmosphere in the classrooms compared to high school. This difference was for the better as the teachers gave the material that was necessary to learn but did it in a way that was relatable and most times creative. Thus I chose the issue of education in high schools not being up to the standard it should be. I wanted to find out a fun and creative teaching method to help bring the material to the students in a fun and productive way which came in the form of video games. From there I collected printed and digital material to help shape the stance I wanted to take on the issue. The stance I decided to take based on the material I gathered was that educational video games should be introduced to classrooms. Following this I organized my evidence in a structure that I saw fit to make this essay cohesive and effective to the readers. As a result I created my first draft and participated in a group review over email with my designated group that was assigned by my teacher in class. After getting feedback on the draft from my group and later my teacher I revised the paper and produced the end result. I believe this work re-visions scholarship because I am doing something that is very academic and traditional but offered a possible solution to the problem that is creative in that not many people would consider using video games.

Can Professor Layton Teach Us?

Over the years the call for reform in education has become a popular and necessary topic. America continues to drop in placement worldwide in education particularly in the subjects of math, science, and reading. This problematic factor as well as continued high school dropouts has led to the collective thinking that something needs to change. As a result, the traditional way of teaching has been questioned as students seem to not be retaining the information well nor are they engaged in the schoolwork. In an economically sensitive time in America where the difference between not having a high school diploma and having one is very obvious it is necessary to get a proper education. Many solutions have been brought forth to help fix these problems but the idea of utilizing video games in classrooms has been a questionable solution. The idea was possibly introduced in the early twenty-first century and has been met with much scrutiny at the beginning. But as years go by the solution appears to be a promising one gaining more supporters along the way. Even President Obama seems to want to consider the possibility as he stated in his speech to TechBoston, “I want you guys to be stuck on a video game that’s teaching you something other than just blowing something up” (Obama). In order to improve the education amongst high school students, educational video games should be utilized in school curriculums because they could help improve problem-solving skills of students. Naturally, there has been much opposition to video games as they have been associated with causing violence to children. I would like to bring to attention that this paper is only focusing on the assumption that educational games will be used in the classrooms not inappropriate, violent games. A game such as Grand Theft Auto will not be brought into the classrooms any time soon unless there is a plan in the works for a course on how to carry out a series of crimes. Besides this there have been other arguments that have been brought up against using video games over time. Teachers and parents alike have voiced their concerns for using the new and risky learning tool in classes. NBC’s Education Nation from 2010 displayed some of the concerns teachers hold about incorporating video games in their curriculums. They are concerned about whether students can transfer what they learn from the games to tests and written assignments (Mader). This might be largely affected by how much of the lesson is being taught by the video game. A lesson might not be as impactful if everything the students learn for the tests are based on the game. One teacher, a K-12 technology teacher, shared his experience with using video games where he believed his students were not “as invested in tests because they aren’t as fun as the games” (Mader). If video games are put into a high school classroom would the students be too absorbed in playing the game instead of actually learning? Perhaps constraining the amount of time is spent on playing as well as deciding when to bring out the consoles in the lesson can help minimize the chances of this occurring. Video games should be used to help the students relate to the lesson, record their progress, or relay information to the students at their own pace. They should not be taking up most of the class time nor should they be the main source of information in the course. Other educators find the problem to be that parents do not want their kids to spend more time playing video games when they already spend a lot of time on the internet, watching TV, and playing video games at home for an average of seven and a

The George Mason Review

half hours worth each day (Mader). This is a very important concern for parents as it would be harmful to have young adults exposed to so much technology for an extended amount of time. Perhaps there is a way to limit how long students play each day in both the classrooms and at home. This way parents can make sure their children are not immersed in so much electronic media. Another concern is that teachers may not be trained to integrate video games into their lessons (Mader). This can be resolved by offering teachers classes to educate them about how to effectively utilize games into the curriculums but this brings about the most noted issue when it comes to education: budget. Not only is there a concern of how to pay for these teachers’ extended education but also where are schools going to get the money to pay for enough consoles for all of the students. The amount of students has increased in the years thus it will be quite expensive to try to provide a video game console to every student. A possible solution might be to find sponsors to provide just enough video game consoles for the students to share. Whether or not this task can be accomplished is up to the government and communities surrounding the schools. There are many arguments against video games but what are the arguments for putting them in education? Video games have been viewed by some as having the ability to provide a project-based learning, the means to continue learning outside school, promote the critical skills for jobs, and lead to social interactions between the students and teachers (Gershenfeld). This ability to do so many things for the benefit of students seems to be too good to be true but there are some examples that might agree with these claims. In 2012 a study was conducted at Roanoke College using an evolution game called SPORE in order to see if the game could be used to teach a college course on evolution. Results from the study show that students that used the game scored five percent higher on the exams and in the course overall (Poli 102). Also those same students were more engaged in conversations in class as well as spending more time on the material outside school and continued their education on the subject beyond the course (Poli 102). In Scotland, many of the schools are using video games in their curriculum because of Derek Robertson. Robertson led a large project using a kit designed with educators that had knowledge on how to deal with technology to help teachers and schools effectively use video games in school curricula. The project was a success as there was a fifty-percent greater improvement in the schools (Chatfield 202). Robertson even managed to teach students how to write ergodic texts using Zelda (Chatfield 200-1). These studies show very promising results that can help improve the education for high school students but what about these games cause such results to happen? The studies demonstrate some of the ability of video games to provide many important skills and learning that were mentioned earlier. But the most important of these qualities of video games is the ability to promote puzzle-solving or problemsolving. Video games “…can help you develop problem-solving skills that you can apply to real life” (Carey). Problem-solving is important for high school students because it leads to logical thinking which is essential for taking the information learned in class and connecting them to real-life applications. Problem-solving is a common and frequent part of the daily routine of school life thus it will not only promote fun but

Can Professor Layton Teach Us?

also learning by pushing students to solve the problems they will face. Also, once high school students leave and begin to search for jobs it is important for them to develop skills that will enable them to transition into the work environment. Almost every video game especially educational games “…require you to solve puzzles or think your way logically through a situation in order to advance in the game” (Carey). This skill is a common skill practiced in about every other video game invented. “Almost any video game you can think of has a puzzle to be solved or an issue that needs to be unraveled” (Larson). The games will not only instill this necessary skill but also keep students engaged. Video games should be utilized in school curriculums in order to improve the education amongst high school students. There a lot of claims against video games as well as obstacles to achieve this task. However there is a way to overcome those obstacles and some of the claims are not backed up by actual proof. The studies have shown that video games help the students to become engaged in class, to continue learning outside the classroom, and to think more critically as they promote problem-solving. Countries like Scotland have already seen the benefits of integrating video games into classrooms. This is not to say that video games will solve all the problems in education. George Brackett says it best in his commentary for The Digital Classroom when he said, “Technologies do not change schools…Thoughtful, caring, capable people change schools,…” (Gordon 29). Even Robertson emphasized to Chatfield that “Games… were not magical learning mechanisms designed to take place of teachers” (Chatfield 201). With the guidance of qualified teachers and the willingness of communities to work with schools these games could help to pioneer an education that can have lasting effects. Without that such an important tool can be rendered useless. In conclusion, video games should not be dismissed as a new way of teaching as it helps students to develop their problem-solving skills and logical thinking.

The George Mason Review

The Effects of First Floor Elevation Distribution and Depth-Damage Curves on the HAZUS-MH Flood Model Damage Estimation for Coastal Floods Daniel Scolese

Major: Civil Engineering

About the Work:

An independent study was performed to learn and apply the HAZUS-MH Coastal Flood Model to estimate damage along the Northeastern coast of the United States after the recent Hurricane Sandy. As part of undergraduate research with Drs. Tanyu and Ferreira, students learned to operate and apply HAZUS-MH. The first process we had to do in our research was to understand the program. Here we applied the use of the technical manuals of the program to understand how it worked. We would explore more of the components of the program by contacting individuals that participated in the development of the program and the developer of the program. Once we had a thorough understanding of the program we began to branch out and conduct a literature review and verification of the program. We did both of these at the same time. The literature review we focused on current practices of the program, other models, and improved methods. As for the verification we created an Excel program that would essentially mimic the program showing that we understood how it worked. Afterwards, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the program to understand the most sensitive parameters of the program. The results are then discussed in the paper and we were able to make a conclusion from what we have found. During the entire process we received mentorship and guidance from our professors, Dr. Tanyu and Ferreira. The outcome of this research provided us the understanding and materials for more research of the HAZUS-MH Coastal Flood Model.

The Effects of First Floor Elevation Distribution and Depth-Damage Curves on the HAZUS-MH Flood Model Damage Estimation for Coastal Floods

Abstract An independent study was performed to learn and apply HAZUS-MH to estimate damage along the Northeastern coast of the United States after the recent Hurricane Sandy. As part of undergraduate research with Drs. Tanyu and Ferreira, students learned to operate and apply HAZUS-MH. HAZUS-MH is a nationally recognized model that is utilized to estimate damages from disasters associated with flood, wind, and earthquakes. Part of the study required understanding the details within the flood damage model and in particular how damage was being estimated. Additionally, a review of existing literature was used to compare the techniques in HAZUS-MH with other available methods. During research of the program, it was discovered that the flood damage model may be too generalized due to the distributions of FFE in the study region. An extensive sensitivity analysis was performed on the input (FFE of the buildings and Depth-Damage Curves) to observe the effects on the output (damage predictions) of the model. Results indicate that the damage outcome is more influenced by the distributions of FFE compared to the Depth-Damage Curves. This paper will focus on the findings from the sensitivity analysis implemented by the study.

Introduction HAZUS-MH was created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and contains damage prediction models for flood, wind, and earthquake. The model was developed to aid in emergency management and to provide damage estimations. Within the focus of this research, the HAZUS flood damage model references national and localized databases for essential parameters that are necessary to provide an accurate prediction for damage. HAZUS calculates damage by incorporating floodevents and modeling computations of loss in numerous categories, such as damage to residential homes and transportation systems. Input parameters are made available through default values of inventory and user-specific input parameters regarding the flood. The First Floor Elevations (FFE) and Depth-Damage Curves are compared to the flood event and generate an estimation of loss due to the flood hazard. The results are utilized by emergency management administrators to better handle the effects and initiate actions for repair and mitigation. Damage estimations produced by HAZUS consider multiple aspects including: characteristics of a hazard event, national databases to integrate existing characteristics of the land and population, and the effects of threats to communities in different housing categories. HAZUS stands as the optimal tool to provide users with the ability to produce loss estimations in monetary value to which capital can be allocated more appropriately. The damage model is readily available and free for all users. Employing this damage model will provide more efficiency in planning, recovery, and mitigation in the event of a hazard (Lawson et al., 2004). Students involved with undergraduate research learned to operate and apply the HAZUS-MH flood model to produce damage estimations. The research presented is focused on the FFE distribution and Depth-Damage Curves in HAZUS. A sensitivity analysis was performed on the inventory distributions and Depth-Damage Curves to see the effects of these parameters on the model-calculated damages. The objective

The George Mason Review

was to evaluate which input parameters are most sensitive to the outcome of damage estimations. A flood model producing accurate flood damage estimations is essential to community planning. These damage predictions are directly related to the prevention, planning, and mitigation of flood hazards.

Literature Review An accurate damage model is essential for preparations and handling damages caused by hurricanes. Based on previous literature, analyses on certain characteristics of a hurricane event have been conducted rather than evaluating the HAZUS-MH model directly. It is a constant challenge to create a damage model with greater accuracy and loss estimations. Researchers have created their own means and methodology on performing loss analyses in numerous models. Structure inventory is an important component of damage models and within HAZUS there are different options to apply inventory parameters. HEC-FDA (Hydrologic Engineering Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Flood Damage Analysis) is a flood damage estimation program designed for large-scale watershed analysis of both observed and forecasted hazard impacts, utilizing spatially referenced data. The HEC-FDA considers additional parameters to apply to their damage model. The damage estimation tool gives users the ability to specify a study region and apply more detailed information. Database information is limited to the specified region causing a reduction in the structure inventory. Attributes of the structure are compiled within the database. The components of structure included are: name, damage category, address, value of structure and content, ground elevation, foundation height, FFE, percent depth-damage relationship, stream station, location coordinates, structure characteristic, and other information. For HEC-FDA the inventory is specific to the structureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s location and is used to gather information. Comprehensive data is applied to impact area locations by damage categories to develop elevation-damage with corresponding uncertainty. The developed uncertainty for some parameters may also be an input item to further improve results within HEC-FDA. Options for less detailed analyses are available by relying on available data and no unique inventory. Structure attributes that affect the damage caused by flood is dependent on the land use of the location of the structure and its elevation with respect to inundation levels (Burnham et al., 2004). Another parameter considered by HAZUS are Depth-Damage Curves which are specific to the hazard and location. They are traditionally generated from an investigation of damage after a hazard or from synthesis, both approaches generating differing curves. In order to create a Depth-Damage Curve from synthesis, data is gathered (property items, possessive rates, and corresponding item/structure heights) and an assessment is made to identify the damage on the data from inundation height. However, the consideration of only flood depth does not provide enough information to develop flood damage estimations. Chang et al. (2007) presents another approach to develop Depth-Damage functions to produce more accurate damage estimations that incorporates case studies on factors that affect damage for flood events. The relationship between flood depth and location has been integrated to formulate a quantitative equation for a flood damage function that is region specific and applied to form a depth-

The Effects of First Floor Elevation Distribution and Depth-Damage Curves on the HAZUS-MH Flood Model Damage Estimation for Coastal Floods

damage function. The method presented applies a modified global regression model to establish a flood damage function considering a region, knowing that flood damage is enhanced as flood depth increases. Additionally, spatial variations are considered and applied to modify the global regression model. Not only is it necessary to incorporate the flood depth, but the regional impacts needed to be considered in the flood damagedamage function (Chang et al., 2007). To improve the accuracy of Depth-Damage Curves, McBean et al. (1988) has recommended adjustment factors for flood damage curves. These adjustments may be a result of many different aspects distinctive to the flood event. Outcomes done by this study, demonstrate that flood events that had a longer duration had an increase in total damages by 6%. Also, research shows that exposure to previous flooding, family income, and other criteria did not contribute to a majority of potential flood damages across the different housing categories (McBean et al., 1988). Uncertainties have been identified with the many different types of Depth-Damage Curves developed internationally. These uncertainties are due to simplifying the hazard and neglecting other important factors related to the hazard, such as flood velocity and flood duration. From the Rhine Atlas method, Depth-Damage Curves have been derived from databases and their corresponding historical data in combination with experts from different disciplines and countries. In these Depth-Damage Curves damage factors are applied, and values are based on market value instead of replacement value. It has been noted that further evaluations on the quality of Depth-Damage Curves for residential structures are necessary to produce valid damage estimates, as current Depthâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; Damage Curves contain a significant uncertainty (de Moel et al., 2011). Previous research has explored different parameters within HAZUS. An analysis often made is the differences between Level 1 and Level 2 analyses in HAZUS- MH and results have shown that a Level 2 analysis provides a better damage estimation (Ding et al., 2008). Additionally, HAZUS-MH Level 2 analysis does correspond with Federal Flood Control Project results and a close correlation has been noted, indicating that the Level 2 analysis is a reliable result particularly for the Harris County Risk Assessment Program (Ding et al., 2008). Many authors have investigated flood event characteristics and the effects these storms have on the predictions of damage. Through literature reviews it is evident that the research being performed is unique, and will be a good resource to improve accuracy in damage estimations due to flooding.

Methodology HAZUS Flood Model

The study region was focused on a census tract in Seaside Heights, Ocean County, NJ. The damage results were focused on three census blocks within the census track (figure 1).

The George Mason Review

Figure 1: Study Region Census Blocks

The HAZUS flood model is able to perform calculations on the census block level. A user supplied Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and flood utilized by the program compares the flood height with ground elevations (FEMA). For the basis of this analysis the regional geography was not used, instead the DEM was set to a constant elevation of zero. The zero elevation will create a constant distribution of the flood height and allow for easier hand calculations. Finally, the flood for the study region was created by using a 100 year Stillwater Elevation (SWEL) flood depth of four feet with no flood setup. This setup was used to keep damage hand calculations simple to verify HAZUS results. HAZUS will utilize the user supplied DEM and flood elevation and create a depth grid of a constant four foot flood HAZUS uses the depth grid, Depth-Damage Curves, developed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and the Federal Insurance Agency, and Census provided inventory to produce a damage result (FEMA). The General Building Stock inventory within the program is evenly distributed among the census block and not a specific location on the study region (FEMA). For this study, the General Building Stock inventory was focused solely on the single family residential structures or RES1. Since the inventory is evenly distributed among the census block, HAZUS will also evenly distribute the flood. For example, if the flood was not covering the entire census block and was only covering 25% of the census block, HAZUS will assume 25% of the RES1 structures are in the flood (FEMA). HAZUS will take the four foot flood compare to the FFE provided by the foundation type of the RES1 structure and take the difference to obtain the inundation. The inundation will then give a percentage of square feet damaged from the Depth-Damage Curves in the census block. Depth-Damage Curves are a relationship developed by the FIA and USACE showing inundation and the percent damage of the structures monetary value (FEMA). For example, a one story RES1 structure with no basement and a slab foundation will experience three feet inundation. Therefore using the depth damage curve for a one story RES1 structure with no basement will receive

The Effects of First Floor Elevation Distribution and Depth-Damage Curves on the HAZUS-MH Flood Model Damage Estimation for Coastal Floods

18% damage. HAZUS will do this for all the RES1 structures in the census block. The analysis will be able to provide the total amount of square feet damaged of the RES1 structure in the census blocks.

Excel Flood Model Program

For the purpose of this research, an Excel program was created using the FEMA HAZUS Flood Model technical manual. The Excel program’s results were verified with HAZUS results by using the default settings and the methodology explained above. Three census blocks were compared to Excel to verify results and accuracy. Initially Pre-FIRM results from the Excel program were not matching HAZUS results. By using the solver function from Excel and HAZUS results, the program was able to determine the distributions of inventory of the region to match HAZUS results. The default distributions of the basement and level of stories are compared to the solver determined distributions in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1—Basement Distribution Initial Assumption—FEMA HAZUS Flood Technical Manual Basement

No Basement

74%

26% Solver Distribution

Table 2 – Number of Stories Distribution Initial Assumption—FEMA HAZUS Flood Technical Manual 1 Story

2 Stories

3 Stories

Split Level

29%

61%

Solver Distribution 0

100

The solver results are in line with the HAZUS Flood Model technical manual because low rise structures without basements were considered more common during the PreFIRM era. The Post-FIRM inventory does use the basement and story distributions supplied in the FEMA HAZUS Flood Technical Manual. Afterwards, damage results computed by the Excel program were within reason of the HAZUS results. The Excel program is able to calculate similar damage results as HAZUS and will be used for the sensitivity analysis.

Analysis A sensitivity analysis was performed on the Excel program to understand what parameters of the program affect the damage results. The results are focused on the amount of square feet damaged by the flood and the damage ranges (i.e. undamaged, 1 to 20% damaged, etc.) in which those results are contained. The sensitivity analysis will include changing the study regions mapping scheme, the distribution of the

The George Mason Review

foundations, and Depth-Damage Curves. The foundation distribution contains the FFEs that the program uses to compare to the flood depth. The altered foundation distribution will be changed by assuming 100% of certain foundations (pile, pier, crawl, etc.). The RES1 depth-damage functions are also altered by either adding or subtracting 10% to the default Depth-Damage Curves for the RES1 structures. An example of an altered Depth-Damage function can be seen bellow in Figure 2. A. RES11N

B. RES11B

Figure 2: Altered Depth-Damage Curves for RES11X

Results Foundation Distributions:

The results for the sensitivity analysis performed on the foundation distribution in figures three and four below represent an amount of square feet damaged versus the FFE. The results signify that the amount of undamaged square feet damage increases as the FFE increases. As for the damaged squared feet, when the FFE decreases down to one foot, the severity of damage increases. Another observation that these figures depict is that a lower FFE experiences a greater range of damage compared to a higher FFE. For example from the Pre-FIRM (Figure 1) figure, a two foot FFE experiences damage ranges from 11 to 20 percent and 21 to 30 percent. Whereas a five foot FFE experiences damages ranges from 1 to 10 percent and 11 to 20 percent. Although both experience the 11 to 20 percent damage range the two foot FFE has more square feet damaged in that particular range compared to the five foot FFE. Finally, as the FFE decreases or the flood starts to increase further above the structures first finished floor, the intensity of damage will increase.

Altered Depth-Damage Functions:

The results for the sensitivity analysis performed on the altered Depth-Damage Curves are displayed in Figures five and six below represent an amount of square damaged versus the percent changed from the default curves. The results in both figures represent that as the curves are decreased by a certain percentage the intensity of damage will decrease, whereas the opposite the damage increases when percentage increases. For

The Effects of First Floor Elevation Distribution and Depth-Damage Curves on the HAZUS-MH Flood Model Damage Estimation for Coastal Floods

example when the default Depth-Damage Curves are altered by increasing them by 10% the census blocks increase in the intensity of damage. There are more square feet damaged in the ranges of 31 to 40% compared to the default (0%) where there is no damage. However, regardless of how much the Depth-Damage Curves are altered, the undamaged will stay unchanged. This is because the program first analyzes the foundation height and compares it to the flood, thus determining a damaged and undamaged value. Then the damaged value is separated into its percent damaged by using the Depth-Damage Curves. Finally those values are converted into a monetary value.

Figure 3: Pre-FIRM Damage based on 4 Foot Flood for Census Blocks: 340297270011010, 340297270011014, 340297270011019

Figure 4: Post-FIRM Damage based on 4 Foot Flood for Census Blocks: 340297270011010, 340297270011014, 340297270011019

The George Mason Review

Figure 5: Alterations of Default Depth-Damage Curves: Pre-FIRM Square Feet Damaged for Census Blocks: 340297270011010, 340297270011014, 340297270011019

Figure 6: Alterations of Default Depth-Damage Curves: Post-FIRM Square Feet Damaged for Census Blocks: 340297270011010, 340297270011014, 34029727001101

Conclusion The results from the sensitivity analysis display that both foundation distribution and the Depth-Damage Curves can affect the damage results. The foundation distribution associated with FFEs with substantially higher values will experience the least amount of damage compared to a foundation distribution with FFEs with lower values. DepthDamage Curves altered by adding ten percent to the default Depth-Damage Curves

will shift damage to a more destructive damage tier. For example, the Pre-FIRM default program produced a result of 71.82 square feet damaged in the 11 to 20% range. Whereas the Pre-FIRM plus ten percent to the default functions produced no damage in that range, but did produce the same 71.82 square feet damage in the 21 to 30% range. In both of the sensitivity analyses, the foundation distributions and Depth-Damage Curves, the undamaged or zero percent damage only changed as a result of altering the foundation distributions. The reason why this phenomenon occurs is because the program will first analyze the foundations of the census block versus the flood depth to determine undamaged and damaged values then use Depth-Damage Curves to determine the percent damaged. Figure three and four show the undamaged value changing, whereas the figure five and six show no change of the undamaged value. Since foundation distributions ultimately determine the undamaged value meaning zero percent damage or replacement costs, the replacement costs will be more affected by how the foundations are distributed within the region. Less damage to a region means there will be less replacement costs and vice versa. Although results are being affected by the type of Depth-Damage Curves used for the study region, how HAZUS will be distributing the foundations will have more of an effect on the damage results.

The George Mason Review

Project Realism Works Cited

Bethesda Game Studios. (2011) Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Bethesda, USA: Bethesda Softworks. DCSS DevTeam. (2006). Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. Shareware. Dunniway, T. Novak, J. (2008) Game Development Essentials: Gameplay Mechanics. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning Hammer, S. Seifert, M. Staerfeldt, H. H. Madsen, T. Nyboe K. (1991) DikuMUD. [Online Game.] Howard, J. (2008). Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives. Wellesley, MA: A K Peters, Ltd. Ice Pick Logic. (2006). Pathologic. London, U.K.: G2 Games. Jagex Games Studio. (2001). RuneScape. [Online Game]. Cambridge, U.K.: Jagex Game Studio Konami. (2005). Lost in Blue. [Nintendo DS]. Tokyo, Japan: Konami. Obsidian Entertainment. (2010). Fallout: New Vegas. [Xbox 360]. Bethesda, USA: Bethesda Softworks. Origin Systems. (1985). Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Manchester, USA: Origin Systems. Pavlina, S. (2007) Polyphasic Sleep - One Year Later. Steve Pavlina.com. Retrieved from http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/03/polyphasic-sleep-one-year-later/ Playstation C.A.M.P., Crispy’s. (2012). Tokyo Jungle. [PS3]. Sony Computer Entertainment. Sierra Entertainment. (1986). The Black Cauldron. Oakhurst, USA: Sierra Entertainment. Submission guidelines. (2008) Game Studies: the international journal of computer game research Retrieved from http://gamestudies.org/1001/ submission_guidelines#GSstyleGuidelines Ubisoft Montreal. (2008). Far Cry 2. [Xbox 360]. Montreuil, France: Ubisoft. Valve Corporation. (2004). Half-Life 2. Kirkland, USA: Valve Corporation.

Understanding Marital Success Among College Students Works Cited

Amato, Paul R. 1996. “Explaining the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 58(3): 628-640. Amato, Paul Richard, and Denice Previti. 2003. "People's Reasons for Divorcing: Gender, Social Class, The Life Course, and Adjustment." Journal of Family Issues. 24: 602-626 Booth, A. and Edwards, J.N. 1985. “Age at marriage and marital instability.” Journal of Marriage and the Family. 47:67-75. Bumpass, Larry L, Teres Castro Martin and James A Sweet. 1991. “Impact of Family

Citations

Background and Early Marital Factors on Marital Disruption.” Journal of Family Issues. 12:22-42. Bumpass, Larry and Hsien-Hen Lu. 2000. “Trends in cohabitation and implications for children’s family contexts in the United States.” Population Studies. 54: 29-41. DeMaris, Alfred and Gerald R. Leslie. 1984. “Cohabitation with the Future Spouse: Its Influence upon Marital Satisfaction and Communication.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 46(1):77-84 Du Feng, Roseann Giarrusso, Vern L Bengston, Nancy Frye. 1991. “Intergenerational Transmission of Marital Quality and Marital Instability.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 61(2):451-463. Galvin, Christina Rosen. 2006. "Research on Divorce Among Postsecondary Students: Surprisingly Missing." The Family Journal. 14 (4): 420-423. Greenstein, Theodore N. 1990. “Marital Disruption and the Employment of Married Women.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 52(3): 657-677. Greenstein, Theodore N. 1995. “Gender Ideology, Marital Disruption and the Employment of Married Women.” Journal of Marriage and the Family. 57(1): 31¬ 42. Guttman, J and A. Lazar. 2004. “Criteria for marital satisfaction: does having a child make a difference?” Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology. 22(3): 147-155 Houseknecht, Sharon K and Grahm B Spanier. 1980. “Marital Disruption and Higher Education among Women in the United States.” The Sociological Quarterly. 21(3): 375-389 Jerskey, Beth A, Matthew S. Panizzon, Kristen C. Jacobson, Michael C. Neale, Michael D. Grant, Mark Schultz, Seth A. Eisen, Ming T. Tsuang and Michael J. Lyons. 2010.“Marriage and Divorce: A genetic perspective.” Personality and Individual Differences. 49 (5): 473-478. Jose, Orathinkal and Vansteenwegen Alfons. 2007. “Do Demographics Affect Marital Satisfaction?” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. 33(1):73-85. Kamp Dush, Claire M, Catherine L. Cohan, and Paul R. Amato. 2004. “The Relationship between cohabitation and marital quality and stability: Change across cohorts?” Journal of Marriage and Family. 65(3): 539-549. Lambert, Nathaniel M. and David C Dollahite. 2006. “How Religiosiy Helps Couples Prevent, Resolve and Overcome Marital Conflict.”Family Relations. 55(4): 439-49. Marks, L. 2005. “How does religion influence marriage? Christian, Jewish, Mormon, and Muslim perspective.” Marriage and Family Review. 38 (1): 85-111. Martin, S. 2006. “Trends in marital dissolution by women’s education in the United States.” Demographic Research. 15 (20):537-560. Martin, S,, and Parashar, S. 2006.“Women’s changing attitudes toward divorce, 1974¬2002: Evidence for an educational crossover.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 68 (1): 29-40. Mackey, Richard A. and Bernard A. O'Brien. 1995.Lasting Marriages: Men and Women Growing Together. Westport, CT: Praeger. Poortman, Anne. Rigt. 2002. Socioeconomic Causes and Consequences of Divorce. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Robinson, Linda C and Priscilla W. Blanton. 1993. “Marital Strengths in Enduring

The George Mason Review

Marriages.” Family Relations. 42(1):38-45. Stevens, Daphne, Gary Kiger, and Pamela J Riley. 2001. “Working hard and hardly working: Domestic Labor and marital satisfaction among dual-earner couples.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 63(2): 514-526. Uecker, Jeremy E and Charles E Stokes. 2008. “Early Marriage in the United States.” Journal of Marriage and Family. 70 (4):835-846. Waite, Linda J., and Lee A. Lillard. 1991. "Children and Marital Disruption."American Journal of Sociology. 96(4): 930-53. Wilcox, W. Bradford, and Steven L. Nock. 2006. “What’s Love Got To Do With It? Equality, Equity, Commitment and Women’s Marital Quality.” Social Forces. 84 (3): 1321¬1345. Wolfinger, Nicholas H., and W. Bradford Wilcox. 2008. “Happily Ever After? Religion, Marital Status, Gender, and Relationship Quality in Urban Families.” Social Forces. 86(3): 1311-337.

Puck and the Duke Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus, comp. The Norton Shakespeare. 2nd. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1-3417. Print.

Persevere or Party? References

Jarosz, A. F., Colflesh, G. J. H., & Wiley, J. (2012). Uncorking the muse: Alcohol intoxication facilitates creative problem solving. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(1), 487-493. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2012.01.002 Shelley, M. (1996). Frankenstein. J. P. Hunter (Ed.) New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.

PRC Government Influence On Gender (In)Equality Career Obstacles for Chinese Businesswomen? References

Aaltion, Iris, and Jiehua Huang. 2007. “Women Managers’ Careers in Information Technology in China: High Flyers with Emotional Costs?” Journal of Organizational Change Management 20 (2): 227. doi:10.1108/09534810710724775. Adler, Nancy J. 1997. “Global Leadership: Women Leaders.” MIR: Management International Review 37 (December 31): 171–196. Benson, John, and Vimolwan Yukongdi. 2005. “Asian Women Managers: Participation, Barriers and Future Prospects.” Asia Pacific Business Review 11 (2) (June): 283–291. bth. Berik, Günseli, Xiao-yuan Dong, and Gale Summerfield. 2007. “China’s Transition and Feminist Economics.” Feminist Economics 13 (3/4) (July): 1–33. doi:Article.

100

Citations

Bowen, Chieh-Chen, Yan Wu, Chi-en Hwang, and Robert F. Scherer. 2007. “Holding up Half of the Sky? Attitudes Toward Women as Managers in the People’s Republic of China.” International Journal of Human Resource Management 18 (2) (February): 268–283. doi:Article. Burda, Julien. 2007. “Chinese Women After the Accession to the World Trade Organization: A Legal Perspective on Women’s Labor Rights.” Feminist Economics 13 (3/4) (July): 259–285. doi:Article. Chen, Lien-Tung, Cheng-Wu Chen, Chen-Yuan Chen, et al. "Are educational background and gender moderator variables for leadership, satisfaction and organizational commitment?." African Journal of Business Management. 4.2 (2010): 248-261. Web. 19 Sep. 2012. Cooke, Fang Lee. 2001. “Equal Opportunity? The Role of Legislation and Public Policies in Women’s Employment in China.” International Journal of Human Resource Management 14 (2) (March): 334–348. doi:Article. ———. 2005. “Women’s Managerial Careers in China in a Period of Reform.” Asia Pacific Business Review 11 (2) (June): 149–162. bth. ———. 2010. “Women’s Participation in Employment in Asia: a Comparative Analysis of China, India, Japan and South Korea.” International Journal of Human Resource Management 21 (12) (October): 2249–2270. doi:Article. Ding, Sai, Xiao-Yuan Dong, and Shi Li. 2009. “Women’s Employment and Family Income Inequality During China’s Economic Transition.” Feminist Economics 15 (3) (July): 163–190. doi:Article. Liu, Sandra S., Lucette B. Comer, and Alan J. Dubinsky. 2001. “Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Women as Sales Managers in the People’s Republic of China.” The Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management 21 (4) (October 1): 303–311. Ling, Wenquan, Rosina C. Chia, and Liluo Fang. 2000. “Chinese Implicit Leadership Theory.” The Journal of Social Psychology 140 (6): 729–739. doi:10.1080/00224540009600513. Ngai, Pun. 2010. “Imagining Sex and Gender in the Workplace.” In Global Perspectives on Gender and Work: Readings and Interpretations, ed. Jacqueline Goodman-Draper, 339–354. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Wolf, Margery. 1985. Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China. London, England: Methuen & Co. Won Kim, Sung, Vanessa L. Fong, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Niobe Way, Xinyin Chen, Huihua Deng, and Zuhong Lu. 2010. “Income, Work Preferences and Gender Roles Among Parents of Infants in Urban China: A Mixed Method Study from Nanjing.” The China Quarterly 204: 939–959. doi:10.1017/S0305741010001037. Woo, Margaret Y. K. 1994. “Chinese Women Workers: the Delicate Balance between Protection and Equality.” In Engendering China: Women: Culture and the State, eds. C. Gilmartin, G. Hershatter, L. Rofel & T. White, 279-298. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Xian, Huiping, and Carol Woodhams. 2008. “Managing Careers: Experiences of Successful Women in the Chinese IT Industry.” Gender in Management 23 (6): 409–425. doi:10.1108/17542410810897535.

101

The George Mason Review

Yukongdi, Vimolwan, and John Benson. 2005. “Women in Asian Management: Cracking the Glass Ceiling?” Asia Pacific Business Review 11 (2) (June): 139–148. bth. Zhang, Liqin, and Xiao-Yuan Dong. 2008. “Male–female Wage Discrimination in Chinese Industry Investigation Using Firm-level Data1.” Economics of Transition 16 (1): 85–112. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0351.2007.00317.x. Zhou, Xueguang, and Phyllis Moen. 2001. Careers of Couples in Contemporary Society: From Male Breadwinner to Dual-Earner Families. Ed. Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Sonja Drubnic. Oxford University Press, USA.

The Dark Side of Albania: Exploring Human Trafficking References

Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. (2012, April 5). Background note: Albania. Retrieved from http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3235.htm Kane, J. (2005, January). Child trafficking - the people involved: a synthesis of findings from Albania, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine. Retrieved from http://www. humantrafficking.org/uploads/publications/ipec_balkana_05.pdf PBS. (2003, September 25). Human trafficking worldwide: Albania. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/dying-to-leave/ human-trafficking-worldwide/albania/1447/ United States Department of State. (2012, June 19). 2012 trafficking in persons report: Albania. Retrieved from http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/ country,,,,ALB,,4fe30ceac,0.html

Glenn Gould in the Studio Endnotes

Kevin Bazzana, Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 234. Ibid, 232-234. Bazzana, 237. Bazanna, 241. Tim Page, “Introduction,” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), xii-xv. Page, xiv-xv. Glenn Gould, “The Prospects of Recording,” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), 3¬¬31. Bazzana, 174-176. Bazzana, 180. Gould, “Of Mozart and Related Matters,” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), 37. Otto Friedrich, Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations (New York: Random House, 1989), 73. Bazzana, 178. Bazzana, 179.

102

Gould, “Let’s Ban Applause!” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), 246. Bazzana, 180. “Let’s Ban Applause!” 246. Glenn Gould, “Rubinstein,” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), 285. Andrew Kazdin, Glenn Gould at Work (New York: Dutton, 1989), 84-85. Glenn Gould, “Music and Technology,” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), 355. Kazdin, 85-87. Kazdin’s book on Gould, Glenn Gould at Work: Creative Lying, contains a lengthy and fascinating chapter about this and related aspects of Gould’s personality. “Rubinstein,” 287. Glenn Gould, Glenn Gould: Selected Letters, ed. John P. L. Roberts (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 101. Ibid, 178. Ibid. Ibid, 43. Bazzana, 261. Glenn Gould, “The Grass Is Always Greener in the Outtakes: An Experiment in Listening,” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), 357-359. Bazzana, 258-259. “An Experiment in Listening,” 358. “Music and Technology, 354-355. Ibid, 356. “The Prospects of Recording,” 338. “An Experiment in Listening,” 357-368. Bazzana, 263. Kazdin, 35. “The Prospects of Recording,” 338-339. Kazdin, 65. Ibid, 16-19. Selected Letters, 123. Bazzana, 265. “The Prospects of Recording,” 335. Ibid, 335-336. Ibid, 343-344. One of Gould’s most accurate predictions in “The Prospects of Recording” was that because of recording, more people would have to come to terms with the reality that the Western musical tradition is but one of many. Ibid, 333. Ibid, 347. Ibid, 348. Ethan Hein, “Glenn Gould predicts remix culture,” Ethan Hein’s Blog, http://www. ethanhein.com/wp/2010/glenn-gould-predicts-remix-culture/ (accessed November 18, 2011).

103

The George Mason Review

Glenn Gould, “Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process,” Grand Street, No. 50, Models (Autumn, 1994), http://www.jstor.org/stable/25007782 (accessed November 17, 2011). Glenn Gould, “Strauss and the Electronic Future,” in The Glenn Gould Reader (New York: Knopf, 1984), 95. “Strauss and the Electronic Future,” 93. “The Prospects of Recording,” 341-343. Ibid, 350-351. Ibid, 353. Ibid. References

Angilette, Elizabeth. Philosopher at the Keyboard: Glenn Gould. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1992. Bazzana, Kevin. Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Friedrich, Otto. Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations. New York: Random House, 1989. Gould, Glenn. “Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process.” Grand Street, No. 50, Models (Autumn, 1994), http://www.jstor.org/stable/25007782 (accessed November 17, 2011). Gould, Glenn. “Glenn Gould in Conversation with Tim Page.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 451-461. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in Piano Quarterly (Fall 1981). Gould, Glenn. “Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 315-328. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in High Fidelity (February 1974). Gould, Glenn. Glenn Gould: Selected Letters, edited and compiled by John P. L. Roberts. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992. Gould, Glenn. “Let’s Ban Applause!.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 245-250. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in Musical America (February 1962). Gould, Glenn. “Music and Technology.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 353-357. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in Piano Quarterly (Winter 1974-75). Gould, Glenn. “Of Mozart and Related Matters.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 32-43. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in Piano Quarterly (Fall 1976). Gould, Glenn. “Rubinstein.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 283-290. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in Look (March 9, 1971). Gould, Glenn. “Strauss and the Electronic Future.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 92-99. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in Saturday Review (Winter 1964). Gould, Glenn. The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page. New York: Knopf, 1984. Gould, Glenn. “The Grass Is Always Greener in the Outtakes: An Experiment in Listening.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 357-368. New York:

104

Knopf, 1984. Originally published in High Fidelity (August 1975). Gould, Glenn. “The Prospects of Recording.” In The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, 331-353. New York: Knopf, 1984. Originally published in High Fidelity (April 1966). Hein, Ethan. “Glenn Gould predicts remix culture.” Ethan Hein’s Blog. http://www. ethanhein.com/wp/2010/glenn-gould-predicts-remix-culture/ (accessed November 18, 2011). Kazdin, Andrew. Glenn Gould at Work: Creative Lying. New York: Dutton, 1989. Ostwald, Peter F. Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius. New York: Norton, 1997.

Can Professor Layton Teach Us? Works Cited

Carey, Dachary. “The Pros and Cons of Video Games.” n.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. Chatfield, Tom. Fun Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century. New York:Pegasus Books, 2010. Print. Clem, Frances A. and Simpson, Elizabeth. “Video Games in the Middle School Classroom.” Middle School Journal, 39.4 (March 2008): 4-11. Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE). JSTOR. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Gershenfeld, Alan. “Game-Based Learning: Hype Vs. Reality.” Huffington Post. 3 Jun 2011. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Gordon, David T.ed. The Digital Classroom: How Technology is Changing the Way We Teach and Learn. Cambridge: Harvard Education Letter, 2000. Print. Larson, Heather. “5 Ways Video Games Benefit Kids.” n.p., 28 Jul. 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. Mader, Jackie. “Education Nation: Why educators aren’t sold on video games.” HechingerEd. 24 Sep. 2012. The Hechinger Report. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. Obama, Barack. “President Obama on Education at TechBoston.” TechBoston Academy, Boston, MA. 8 March 2011. Speech. Poli, Berenotto, Blankenship, Piatkowski, Bader, Mark Poore. “Bringing Evolution to Technological Generation: A Case Study with the Video Game SPORE.” The American Biology Teacher 74.2 (Feb. 2012): 100-3. University of California Press. JSTOR. Web. 22 Oct. 2012.

The Effects of First Floor Elevation Distribution and DepthDamage Curves on the HAZUS-MH Flood Model Damage Estimation for Coastal Floods References

Burnham, M.W., Dunn, C.N., and Carl, R.D. (2004). “HEC’s Flood Damage Analysis (HEC-FDA) Program,” Building Partnership. Chang, L.F., and Su, M.D. (2007). “Using the Geographically Weighted Regression to Modify the Residential Flood Damage Function,” World Environmental and Water

105

The George Mason Review

Resources Congress. de Moel, H., and Aerts, J.C.J.H (20110). “Effects of Uncertainty in Land Use, Damage Models, and Inundation Depth on Flood Damage Estimates,” Nat Hazard, No. 58, pp. 407-425. Ding, A., White J.F., Ullman, P.W., and Fashokun, A.O. (2008) “ Evaluation of HAZUSMH Flood Model with Local Data and Other Program,” Natural Hazards Review, No. 9, pp. 20-28. FEMA. (n.d.). Multi-hazar Loss Estimation Methodology: Flood Model. Washington, D.C. Lawson S.R., Bouabid, J., and Humphrey, D. (2004). “Predicting Consequences,” Water Environment & Technology, No. 16, pp 34-38. McBean, E.A., Gorrie, J., Fortin, M., and Monlton, R. (1988). “Adjustment Factors for Flood Damage Curves,” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, No. 114(6), pp. 635-646. Nadal, N., Zapata, R., Pagan, I., Lopez, R., and Agudelo, J. (2010). “Building Damage due to Riverine and Coastal Floods,” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, No. 136(3), pp. 327-336. Scawthorn, C., Blais, N., Seligson, H., Tate, E., Mifflin, E., Thomas, W., et al. (2006). HAZUS-MH Flood Loss Estimation Methodology.I: Overview and Flood Hazard Characterization.NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW, 60-71. Scawthorn, C., Flores, P., Tate, E., Chang, S., Mifflin, E., Thomas, W., et al. (2006). HAZUS-MH Flood Loss Estimation Methodology. II: Damage and Loss Assessment. Natural Hazards Review, 72-81.

106

107