St. Thomas junior exercise science major Julia Short has been conducting a study on the effects of concussions on simple, everyday tasks over the past four months on the St. Thomas campus.
The study seeks to discover the effects concussions have on fine motor skills, which are “essential for everyday tasks from picking up a pencil and writing to being able to read,” according to Short.
“To my knowledge, there has been very little information looking specifically at post-concussive fine motor skills in adolescents,” Short wrote in an email to TommieMedia.
Short anticipates that there will be gaps in performance between the groups, but she is attempting to find out more specifically about where those gaps may be. Short wrote that she hopes that the data she receives from the study can help guide future research or new treatments for concussions and other minor traumatic brain injuries.
Voter engagement is crucial for improving the community or pushing for change Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and Research Katherine Hill told USG.
“As a social worker, I take voter engagement really seriously because it’s actually been proven to help people’s physical and mental health improve, if they’re engaged in their communities and voting is engaging,” Hill said.
Hill discussed ways to increase student voting registration and voter turnout through the Civic Engagement, Voter Education and Advocacy Task Force.
In 2018, CEVEA calculated 80% of Tommies were registered to vote but only 61% actually voted.
“This year we are trying to get to 85% registered and 70% voter turnout,” Hill said. “So we’re trying to get those numbers up.”
Democrats maintained their narrow leads in key Arizona contests on Thursday, but the races for U.S. Senate and governor were still too early to call with about a fifth of the total ballots left to be counted.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly led Republican Blake Masters by 5.6 percentage points, while Democrat Katie Hobbs had a much tighter lead of 1.4 points against Republican Kari Lake in the governor’s race. Democrats also led in the races for secretary of state and attorney general.
Election officials in Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix and more than 60% of voters, expected to begin reporting results Friday from a crucial group of ballots — nearly 300,000 mail ballots that were returned on Election Day. That group has swung wildly in recent election cycles, from strongly Democratic in the 2018 midterms to strongly Republican in 2020.
The races will hinge on whether those late-counted ballots look more like 2018 or 2020.
Kaden Stewart can be reached at stew3234@stthomas.edu.