Honors College Report February 24, 2010

Anonymous donor gives $3,000: An anonymous donor has given the Honors College a gift of $3,000 to be used for recruitment of first-year students.

Recruitment: Thus far, 18 students have applied for admission and 5 have been accepted. We have not yet received complete application packets from the remaining applicants.

Two-year schedule: Honors College is working with LPA to set up a two-year schedule of classes. The idea is to stabilize enrollment and to rationalize planning.

Four seniors traveling to Greenville, SC by train: Four senior honors students will travel to Greenville, SC over Spring Break to make presentations of their academic work. To save money, they will travel by train from Meridian, MS. They will also document their trip with a video. The students and projects are:

Sydney Kilgore - 1000 Years of Suffering: The Ancient Tradition of Chinese Foot-Binding
Mary McMillan- Acts of Resistance in Frederick Douglass’ Narrative
Nitish Narula - Construction of Histatin-resistant Strains of Candida albicans
Nitish Narula - The CRABS CLAW (CRC) gene tree: a phylogenetic analysis of the Eudicots
Joshua Manuel - Whatever Happened To The [Wo]Man Of Tomorrow? Race and Gender Bias in Graphic Novels

Guest Speaker, Study Abroad: Honors College sponsored a talk by Melissa Galvagni of EuroScholar on 2/23/2010. Ms. Galvagni spoke about semester-long undergraduate research opportunities in Europe along with more-traditional study abroad programs worldwide.

Donations to Silent Auction: Honors College has already received several donations for its upcoming silent auction to be held in conjunction with the Annual Banquet. El Spotro, the artist from Prescott, has donated two small razorback paintings and The Loft has donated a free night’s stay.

Equipment purchases: Honors College purchased an incubator for Dr. Krosnick so that she could direct honors students’ genetics research. The incubator will allow them to precisely control temperatures required for plant growth. Honors College also purchased a netbook computer so that Dr. Bachri could teach the use of Mathematica and other scientific software to honors students.

State Farm Youth Opportunity Grant: Unfortunately, the $86k grant we wrote last October was not funded. On the other hand, only 92 of the nearly 1,200 proposals were funded. We will try it again soon.

Upcoming Events:

Tips on Teaching an Honors Class, Friday, February 26, 2010, Reynolds Foundation Hall, Noon. Three Honors College faculty, Dr. Lynne Belcher, Dr. Chrisanne Christesen, and Dr. Shawn Krosnick will talk about how they teach their honors classes.

Annual Banquet, April 21, 6 p.m. with sponsored tables @ $100 each and eBay auction

Annual Matriculation, August 29, 2 p.m.

The SAU Honors College was founded in 2003 by Dr. David Rankin, president of SAU. Dr. Lynne Belcher served as founding director and continues to serve as a faculty member and advisor. The Honors College seeks and admits qualified students who seek to pursue a serious academic program with equally gifted peers and committed teachers. Honors classes are small and provide academically enriching opportunities for students and the faculty who teach them. Currently, SAU enrolls 92 honors students and will graduate 11 in 2009-2010. Anyone interested in applying to the Honors College or seeking further information should contact the director, Dr. Edward P. Kardas at epkardas@saumag.edu or at 870 904-8897.

Galvagni of Euroscholars Program Visits SAU

Melissa Galvagni of the Euroscholars program spoke at SAU today in the Overstreet Board Room. She covered the details of the Euroscholars program, a consortium of 12 European universities: Leuven, Helsinki, Ludwig-Maximilians (Munich), Ruprecht Karls (Heidelberg), Milan, Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Karolinska Institut (Stockholm), Lund, Geneva, and Zurich.

The Euroscholars program is designed to provide undergraduate research opportunities by integrating students into ongoing research programs. Instruction is in English. The program provides housing, access to university facilities, and travel opportunities.

After presenting at SAU, Galvagni was scheduled to visit UA-Fayetteville the next day. If you are an SAU student have any interest in honors study abroad please contact Ed Kardas.

2010 Honors General Psychology Brains

If it's February in the Spring semester, it must be time to build-a-brain. Here are the latest batch of Play-Doh brains created in Dr. Chrisanne Christensen's Honors General Psychology class.

This one is from--Kahle Harned, Chris Harris, and Kristen Sams.

This one is from--Majesta Miles, James Schlag, and Sarah Irvin.

This one is from--C. J. Heaton, Emilie Vest, and Catherine Smead.

This one is from--from Darrell Gray, John Lee, Andrew Jaques, and ?

Choo Choo--All Aboard

Four SAU Honors College seniors will be traveling to Greenville, South Carolina over Spring Break to present their research projects or original writings to the Southern Regional Honors Council.

The students are Sydney Kilgore, Mary McMillan, Nitish Narula, and Joshua Manuel. They will travel by car and by Amtrak train. They will meet the Amtrak Crescent in Meridian, MS and travel on it to Greenville, SC.

Once there, they will spend four nights at the Hyatt Regency before traveling back home. All are looking forward to spending some time on the rails and presenting their individual projects.

Taking the train was an economic decision, primarily. Four students could travel for about the cost of one plane ticket. But, sentimental reasons helped too. The four will produce a documentary of their trip. It won't be long, unfortunately, until train travel becomes a rare event in the USA.