Tales from the Amusement Park is a collection of songs in the musical theatre style with music and lyrics by Matt Villar. The song cycle illustrates a series of vignettes, with each song featuring a different archetypal character (or group thereof) as they navigate a day in a popular amusement park. The project is written for piano and voices, and is most-suited to twelve or fewer voices. The debut performance occurred on March 26 in the Evelyn Smith Music Theatre, and featured twelve singers and one pianist. The cycle aims to connect the audience through the demonstration of "human moments" which are widely relatable, while also introducing them to unique and interesting characters.

Director Wes Anderson enlisted the talents of composer Mark Mothersbaugh for his first four films (1996-2004), but suddenly decided to turn to composer Alexandre Desplat for the following five films (2009-2021). The question arises as to why this would be the case. In this paper I explore the career backgrounds of Mothersbaugh and Desplat including their musical influences and styles. I then examine Mothersbaugh’s music for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Desplat’s score for The French Dispatch. I analyze the use of music in these films and how it relates to the characters, their feelings, and their thoughts as well as how the music is intertwined with Anderson’s unique direction style. Part of this investigation will highlight the musical styles used, the mixture between composed and borrowed music, and the function of the music in the film to discover the similarities and differences between the two composers. With this paper I hope to fill a gap in the literature on film studies focused on the work of Anderson.

As it currently stands, there are many barriers preventing racial minority students from being accepted into medical school at the same rates as their White peers. This has broad reaching effects that shape how medicine is practiced. In order to help mitigate this issue, different schools and medical groups have begun to develop programs designed to assist students in being accepted into medical school. In this literature review, I further examine these programs by selecting 12 articles to further examine the programs they mentioned. From this examination, trends in the types of programs and the target demographics emerged. The types of programs included academic enrichment, research and lab exposure, mentorship, admissions preparation, counseling, postbaccalaureate or master’s programs, pre-entrance, and recruitment programs. Target demographics varied in age which affected the format of the program. Analyzing different programs revealed the ways in which minority students are currently being assisted and that there is no current standardized measure of the effectiveness of these programs. It will be important to determine effectiveness in order to eliminate these disparities which will be crucial in reducing health disparities nationally.

With cannabis legal in 38 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia as of 2023, the legal cannabis industry has become a major emerging industry that will continue to grow rapidly as continuing support for legalization drives both states and the federal government toward relaxing and even repealing prohibitions on both medical and recreational cannabis. However, the patchwork of conflicting state and federal laws surrounding cannabis create a legal and economic quagmire that severely limit the growth and success of legal cannabis businesses while aggravating longstanding socioeconomic disparities. In this thesis, I offer an evaluation of the history of cannabis in the US, current cannabis policy at the state and federal level, as well as offer a selection of federal and state policy options to promote a dramatic overhaul of current federal cannabis policy. These proposals aim to effectively and efficiently address the state/federal divide in cannabis law while simultaneously addressing key socioeconomic disparities aggravated by federal cannabis prohibition.

This project seeks to motivate runners by creating an application that selectively plays music based on smartwatch metrics. This is done by analyzing metrics collected through a person’s smartwatch such as heart rate or running power and then selecting the music that best fits their workout’s intensity. This way, as the workout becomes harder for the user, increasingly motivating music is played.