Problem: The current national focus on college student success highlights the need to increase the graduation rates of students of color. To date, qualitative research has shown benefits from Ethnic Studies courses such as higher levels of student achievement, engagement and involvement, validation, mattering, and a sense of belonging for...
This thesis is comprised of a manuscript based on a laboratory experiment run in the Tsunami Wave Basin as part of a research project funded by the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation called Housesmash. The purpose of the experiment was to better understand the role of the urban environment, represented...