Honors Student Receive Travel Funds

Today Southern Arkansas University and the Southern Arkansas University Foundation disbursed nearly $10,000 in travel funds to students who had applied for those monies. The funds had been donated by an anonymous benefactor and specifically designated to fund student travel.

Thirty two students submitted individual applications along with a half dozen student groups, representing over 60 students, requesting a total of over $31,000. Faced by such overwhelming demand the committee decided to limit grants to those students making presentations or otherwise benefiting educationally from travel. Students who only wished to attend meetings could not be funded, the committee decided. In addition, the committee attempted to fund as many students as possible and to be sure that students from all colleges were represented.

Many of those funded were honors students. In all cases involving honors students the Honors College funded 50% of their requests. Those funds came from monies donated earlier to the Honors College. No funds came from Honors College state appropriated monies. Honors College students funded included members of the English honor society Sigma Tau Delta: Morgan Johnson, Kody Kasper, Majesta Miles, James Schlag, and Clinton Winters. Those students will travel to Portland and will present their prose and poetry at the national meeting of Sigma Tau Delta.

Honors biology majors Samson King and Subir Shakya were funded so they could each present their botanical research on the genus Passiflora at the Southern Regional Honors Council meeting in Louisville.

Engineering physics major Zachary Pinson received funds so that he could attend the Idea Network for Biomedical Research Excellence held in Fayetteville, AR. There he will present data from his NASA funded research on male and female undergraduate engineering students.

Wildlife Management major Deana Hughes was granted funds to attend the meeting of the Arkansas Academy of Science meeting in Little Rock. She will present data collected while at the Grand Canyon Honors semester she attended during the Fall of 2012 at Northern Arizona University.

Michelle Beavers was awarded funds so that she could attend the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Summer Program. There she will work alongside full time professional researchers. 

The SAU Honors College provided $2,650 of its own funds, collected previously from donors, to the students listed above. The SAU Foundation also provided them with $2,650. One of the goals of the Honors College is to have as many of its students as possible take advantage of extramural opportunities. Combining funds in this manner makes it possible to fund more students.

In addition to the honors students, 43 regular students also received funds for trips to Little Rock.

Serving on the committee were: Abdel Bachri, Alec Testa, Jason Martisek, Jeanie Bismark, Josh Kee, Penny McGlawn, Sheryl Edwards, Svetlana Paulson, and Edward Kardas.

The SAU Foundation is hopeful that the donor will find her contribution well spent and will continue to fund similar travel requests in the future.