The Honors Thesis is a research project for which eligible students apply during their junior year and complete in their senior year. Colby departments and programs that have an honors program establish the requirements for the project and its final format. Each student, upon completion of the thesis, has the opportunity to publish their project in Digital Commons so that it may be made available to the Colby community and to the world at large.
Honors Theses from 2005
The Synthesis of Biomimetic Tungsten and Molybdenum Complexes, John Sterling Cole III
United Methodism in New England: A historical, organizational, and spiritual study, Benjamin Davis
Guest-host chemistry of p-sulfonatocalix[6]arene and nizatidine, Galia Debelouchina
Speechless, Caitlin Dennehy
Extension of national membership: government promises, immigrant expectations and the impact on the foreign population in Germany, Justin Dubois
Synthesis and characterization of di- and tri-oxacalix[4]arenes, Michael Feldman
Sew and Tell: Making Rebozos, Stories and Thinking about Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo, Melissa Hernandez
Liberalization of village banking in Guatemala: structural differences in village banking institutions, Erica L. Hill
Finding Family Trees: Barbara Kingsolver’s Creation of An Ecological Community, Melissa Hinkle
Governmental resistance in international intellectual property rights, Emily Honig
How Unpleasant It is to be Locked Out' Gender, Value and The Canon, A Reception Study of Three Modernist Women Writers, Elizabeth Johnson
On Messalonskee Lake, Michael King
Quite Off the Beaten Track: The Emergency of Sentimental Travel Writing and Its Influence on Anglo-American Society, Daniel Lynch
The Extraordinary Ordinary West: Humanity and Realism in McMurty’s Old West Narratives, Ann MacDonald
So I Guess You Know What I’m Thinking: A Collection of Short Stories, Mary Medlin
Analytical tools for studying phosphorus and nitrogen lake nutrient dynamics and their application to the field, Ivan Mihajlov
Beyond the Ordinary: The Consoling Power of Fantasy Literature in War, Todd Moore
Timing is Everything, Gillian Nadel
Synthetic approaches to rigid "rod-and-panel" macrocycles, Timothy Newhouse
Maternal and Cultural Influences on Individual Identity: The Novels of Toni Morrison and William Faulkner, Rebecca Nisetich
Witchcraft, Madness, and Misogyny: A Macbeth Production, Catherine Pappas
Photochemical generation of 2-methoxy-2methylpropylidene and its rearrangement pathways, Stanislav Presolski
Murder She Wrote, Setting She Did Not: The Creation of Mise-en-Scene in the Film Adaptations of Christie’s Poirot, Nathan Quigley
Automated identification of malicious code variants, Christopher Ries
Precarious Properties: Constructions of Body and Soul in John Donne and Emily Dickinson, Rachel Ritchie
Repetition and Revision: Mythology in the Novels of Toni Morrison and William Faulkner, Toni-Lynn Robbins
The Synthesis and Characterization of Bicyclooxacalixarenes, Kevin J. Selby
Education for the Oppressed: An Examination of the Effects of Literacy on Minority Groups in America, Rachel Sheinbaum
Exploring the World of Hollywood Through Literature, Lauren Smith
JeSS – a Java Security Scanner for Eclipse, Russell Spitler
The Forest Service's Quest for Power and Money: Implications of a Budget-Maximizing Agency, Allison M. Stewart
An Analysis of the Effect of Carbon Dioxide on the Decay Rates of Superoxide, Michael Jay Walsh
Opening the Windows of the Church to the World: The Creation of Nostra Aetate and Its Impact on the Christian-Jewish relationship, Christopher Rodney Yeoh
Honors Theses from 2004
Wealth effects on consumer spending in the US economy, Andriy Avramenko
Reinforcement of Patriarchal Society Through Film: An Examination of the Mother-Daughter Relationship in Literature and Film, Rebecca Avrutin
Hidden Remains: Freud, The Unconscious, and the Irrational in Contemporary American Poetry, Jared Berezin
Spontaneous evolution of cold Rydberg atoms to plasma, Jennifer Carini
"Passage O Soul to India!": Transcending the Transcendentalists, Jennifer Carpenter
Pyaguapy Ita: Silencing the Singing Stone: the Impact of Modern Technology on Indigenous People in Brazil, Caitlin Cassis
The most segregated hour in Christian America: Opposing science in the classroom propagates prejudice in the state of Georgia, Mickey Cooper
Boundary maintenance: an examination of municipal political participation in rural Bolivia, Spencer Fenniman
The Evolution of Language: Rock-Talk to Earth-Talk, Kristin Flanders
Theoretical mathematical model of fishery economics, Andre Garron
Breakdancing on Thin Ice, Sarah Getchell
The Noble Savage in Jean Jacques Rousseau and Three Successors, Chelsie Gosk
Power, positionality, and conceptions of stewardship and ownership in the cleanup of Nomans Land Island, Massachusetts, Michael Greenberg
What about the Canaanites? : Liberating Liberation Theology, Lindsey Grossman
The Musical Idiom: an Exploration of the Language of Music in African American Literature, Laurel Haeusslein
Building Morocco through literacy: women's participation in development, Elizabeth L. Holmes
Mapping of Diepoxybutane Damage in the Cytochrome b Domain of Mitochondrial DNA and the β-globin Domain of Nuclear Chicken DNA Using Quantitative PCR, Justin Juskewitch
High Art: Expedition Literature, Erick Lambert
Searching for the Rules: A Study of John Updike’s Harry Angstrom in Rabbit, Run and the Rabbit Tetralogy, Andrew Lizotte
Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, Lilla Lund
The Aesthetics of Adaptation: Plain Jane Goes to the Movies, Emma McCandless
Writing on the River: Kayak Stories, Henry Munter
Sedimentological and geochemical characterization of East Pond, Belgrade Lakes watershed, central Maine, Robin H. Nesbeda
Designing and implementing a user-focused Web-based database system, Rachel Noiseux
Estimating the impact of state policy incentives on wind power development, Kellie K. Phelan
Visual expectations: using machine learning to identify patterns in psychological data, Skyler Place
Reaction of epichlorohydrin and epibromohydrin with synthetic DNA oligomers, Keith Romano
Alternative Sites of Identity Production: Going from Borderland to Homeland in a Transnational Setting, Adam Saltsman
Evaluations and Project Effectiveness : an Investigation into the Evaluation Processes of Development Projects in Bolivia, Kristin Saucier
Creating a Video Device Application, Kevin Septor
Nikki (a screenplay), Amanda Stanke
Word and Image in the Contemporary Artist's Book, Rachel Tobie
How Natural History Museums Fell From Grace, And Why They Shouldn't Have Or, Defending Museuns During the Age of Hypersensitivity, Vanessa L. Verri
Honors Theses from 2003
Sedimentological and plant taphonomic evaluation of the early Middle Devonian Trout Valley formation, Jonathan Allen
The Tender Desire of Ownership: The Function and Construction of Masculinity in Owen Wister’s The Virginian, Jayant Alter
Extending CSP to disambiguate Linda predicate operations, Kyle Burke
Double stranded DNA-binding studies of potential Rhodium(ll) antitumor complexes, Amity Elizabeth Burr
Screenplay: When It All Comes Down, Anna Capezzera
Unwilling to Explain: Deceptiveness in Robert Frost, Jamie Cowan
To Cheer or Jeer: The American Indian Mascot Dilemma, Jonathan Eck
Appearing Proper: The Woman’s Dilemma in Fanny Burney Evelina and Jane Austen’s Novels, Katrina Fletcher
A Poster, A Surfer, and E-text: Reconciling the newest roles in literary communication, Erin Hanrahan
The Bildungstroman: An Examination of Narratives of Female Development, Megan Hoar
Portraits of Poshlust in Nabakov’s Lolita and Gogol’s Dead Souls, Dennis Kuhnel
Hydrogeochemical analysis of a contaminated industrial site, Amy Lansdale
Evolving the behavior of a predator robot, Katelyn Mann
Defining microcredit success in Bolivia, Kelly Miller
Possible contraction and its effect on 2002 major league baseball attendance, Peter W. Newberry
Economic effects of British imperialism on India: an analysis of the goods and capital markets 1853-1947, Katrina Noyes
An Investigation of the Seasonal Hydrogeochemical Dynamics of a Complex Wetland in Central Maine, Justin E. Ossolinski
Quantitative Analysis of Diepoxybutane Damage within the Chicken β-globin Domain, André M. Pilon
Coolest MUD ever, Kevin Radloff
The Surface Tension of Water, Neil Reynolds
Effect of competitive balance on single game attendance in major league baseball, Thomas V. Richardson
Application of the Chan-Evans diaryl ether synthesis to the formation of Bis(bibenzyls), Eric Rosenthal
Small Castles, Christiana Salah
Flanking Sequences Modulate Diepoxide Cross-linking Efficiencies at the 5'-GNC sSte, Gregory A. Sawyer
Tradition, Transition, and Transformation: Presbyterianism from Calvin's Geneva to Noroton Presbyterian Church, Laura E. Shufelt
Arthur Miller: Spirituality Explored, Courtney M. Smith
Synthesis of Montiporynes A and B, Traci Jenelle Speed
From Maine Farms to Maine Colleges: The Symbolism and Reality behind the Local Purchasing Efforts at Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin, Kathryn L. Spirer