Wednesday, April 22, 2026

COLA Conference Schedule at a Glance

COLA Conference Program

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Panel 1-A: Student Center 2W16B ……………………………………..9:00am-10:15am

Media and Communication Moderator: Zane Dayton

1. Jevin Tryon “Diagnosing the Transparency Gap in AI-Driven Retail Personalization Communication”
2. Cassi Bond “Portraying Disaster: Media Representations of Appalachian Communities After Hurricane Helene”
3. Raigan Lytton “Empowerment and Expectations: Media Representation of Women in Advertising”
4. Abagail Ramey “’He Couldn't Take the Eyes on Him’: The Blair Witch Project, The Taking of Deborah Logan, and the Trouble with Capitalizing on People's Lives”

Panel 1-B: Drinko 349 ……………………………………………………..9:00am-10:15am

Health and Psychology in Different Contexts Moderator: Wendi Benson

1. Stella Harless & Kayleigh Garcia “Perceived Supervisor Support and Fun at Work: Effects on Performance and Retention”
2. Jamie Menshouse & Jamie Cook “Organizational Factors That Influence Quality of Care, Burnout, and Secondary Traumatic Stress”
3. Jessica McCarthy “Mental Health Reporting in West Virginia”
4. Kadi Butcher “The Discussion of Regional Healthcare Access in Huntington Tri-state Area”

Panel 1-C: Drinko 138 …………………………………………………….9:00am-10:15am

Feminist and Marxist Readings of Fictional Worlds Moderator: John Young

1. Mia Crookshanks “Desolate, Despairing Nature: Monstrous Earth and Colonial Power in Wuthering Heights”
2. Devan Ellis “Applying Marxist Criticism to A Song of Ice and Fire”
3. Landon Priddy “Eco-feminism in Greek Mythology”
4. Madison Arthur “When Demonology Lurks in Film”

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Poster Session A: Drinko 4^th floor ………………………………….....10:00am-11:00am

Psychology Projects #1

Moderator: Sarah McCrackin & Masa Toyama

Poster A1. Skylar Elliott “Stigma, Self-Reliance, and Stories: A Qualitative Study of Mental Health Help-Seeking in Appalachia”

Poster A2. Ben Whitmore “Benchmarks for the Effect of Religious Priming on Prosocial Behavior”

Poster A3. Sawyer Adkins “Wealth and Resources as Predictors of Anger Proneness”

Poster A4. Tucker Watson “Attitudes Toward DEI and Their Association with Social Bias Among College Students”

Poster A5. Jaron Skanes “Social Standing as a Predictor of Anger Proneness”

Poster A6. Christopher Hall “Coalitional Strength as a Predictor of Anger Proneness”

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Poster Session B: Drinko 4^th floor …………………………………….....1:00pm-2:00pm

Communication & English Projects

Moderator: Joseph Billingsley & John Young

Poster B1. Anna Broggi “New Trials, Same Women”

Poster B2. Allie Jones “Reworking the Non-Fiction Workshop”

Poster B3. Blessing King “Breaking News or Breaking Trust? Constructing Credibility in Sports Social Media Reporting”

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Panel 2-A: Student Center 2W16B ….…………………………….…..10:45am-12:00pm

Laws and Politics in Japan and U.S. Moderator: Julie Snyder-Yuly

1. Haley Elkins “Omotenashi and Japanese Convenience Store Culture into North America: Seven & i Holding's Advertising Strategy”
2. Andrea Lindsey “The Development of Marriage Equality and the Legal Status of Same-Sex Marriage in Japan”
3. Mack Lucas “Weaponizing the Yakuza in Japanese Politics”
4. Demi Olin “A Law Written, A Meaning Divided: Cognitive and Cultural Filters in Legal Interpretation”

Panel 2-B: Drinko 349 ……………………………………………………10:45am-12:00pm

Appalachia, The Hunger Games and Infrastructural Negation

Moderator: Daniel Normandin

1. Aubrey Jones “The Backroads of Drugs, Nature, and Mental Illness in West Virginia”
2. Abbie Smith “Panem et Circenses: Teaching The Hunger Games through the Lens of Media Studies”
3. Christopher Jenkins “Infrastructural Negation and the Politics of Communicative Survival”
4. Josslyn Forth “What We Carried Out Of The Holler”

Panel 2-C: Drinko 138 ………………………………………….………..10:45am-12:00pm

Representations of Selfhood Moderator: John Young

1. Jackson Murphy “The Man Upon the Stair”
2. Baylee Parsons “To Write the Self is to Write the World: Universality in Edouard Leve's Autoportrait”
3. Kyra Wilson “A Lens or a Barrel: Cameras in ‘Stranger with a Camera’ and "The Show About the Show”
4. Julia McAndrews “Satori: Three Stories in Exploration”

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Panel 3-A: Student Center 2W16B ……….…………………………….12:15pm-1:30pm

Hispanic Cultures and Global Issues Moderator: Natsuki Anderson

1. Sydney Scholl “Cambodian Genocide in the Eyes of Children”
2. Alex Gratchev “The Merciless Motif of Violence: The Perspective of Children in Latin American Cinema”
3. Jayson Salmons “Thematic Analysis of Churches with Spanish Content Available in the KY-WV-OH Tristate Area”
4. Cecelia Burke “Spanish-English Bilingualism in the United States: Negotiating an Identity and Community “

Panel 3-B: Drinko 349 …………………………………………………….12:15pm-1:30pm

Welfare and Stagnation in the U.S. Moderator: Andrew Morelock

1. Ben Shanks “The Stagnation of U.S. Manned Space Flight”
2. Cameron Mays “War to Welfare: The People’s War and the British Election of 1945”
3. E. Provost “Assessing Tenant Protections for Domestic Violence Survivors in West Virginia”

Panel 3-C: Drinko 138 ………………………………………….………....12:15pm-1:30pm

Narratology and Poetics Moderator: Puspa Damai

1. Alyson Long “Striking Narrative Gold: Spatial Storytelling in Disney’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad”
2. Zach Gibson “The Ludic Mode: Messages Communicated Through Narrative Structure”
3. Skylar Treadway “Having A Body Is the Horror”
4. Taylor Dyer “Decoding Translation: The Contemporary Poetics of The Odyssey”

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Panel 4-A: Student Center 2W16B ……………………………….…......2:00pm-3:15pm

Suffering Truthfully, Suffering the Truth Moderator: Del Chrol

1. Abby Parks “War-Induced Trauma: Ancient Perspectives and Modern Experiences”
2. Gracie Bumgarner “’Speak What We Feel, Not What We Ought to Say’: Why King Lear’s Cordelia Faces a Worse Fate Than Othello’s Desdemona”
3. Rainier Spears “Warring Orders: Examining Conceptions of Sovereignty in Shakespeare”

Panel 4-B: Drinko 349 ……………………………………………….…......2:00pm-3:15pm

History, Heritage, and Material Interpretation Moderator: Brian Hoey

1. Anna Akers “A Study in Funding and Visitation Rates in Museums “
2. Abigail Carney “Buried Histories: An Analysis of Death Records from Huntington’s Historic Black Cemetery”
3. Nico Pace “A Tool for Classifying Projectile Points of West Virginia Using the Donated Collection at Marshall University”
4. Kyleigh Hoey “Art and Identity: A Design Analysis of Decorated Portable Artifacts found in Irish Neolithic Passage Tombs”

Panel 4-C: Drinko 138 ……………………………………………….…......2:00pm-3:30pm

TV Dramas and Films Moderator: Puspa Damai

1. Tierney Sollars “Exilic Language: The Politics of Trauma in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs (2018)”
2. Ivan Claypool “Sacrifices and Blunders: How the World of The Queen's Gambit (1983) Compares to Our Own”
3. Lauren Louden “Blasphemy or Grace: A Gritty Perspective of Spiritual Conflict in Catholic Horror Films”

4. Dylan Abbott “Growing Up in the Marsh: Identity and Isolation in Delia Owens ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’”
5. Abagail Ramey “#SB1863-2” (short film)