Hughes GIS Poster

Deana Hughes Explains her Posters to a listener

Carl Drexler's Geographical Information Systems (GIS) class presented their posters today. Deana Hughes's poster (top) related to the Grand Canyon. She spent the Fall 2012 semester at Northern Arizona University. The poster shows the Colorado River as is cuts through the Grand Canyon and discusses many geographical features of the canyon.

Lee Takes London

 Terence Lee

No, not Robert E. Lee, Terence Lee. He'll be going to London this summer to take part in the Drama Summer School at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Their online page states:

• Our two summer school courses each offer three weeks of stimulating and inspiring training in acting. Both courses include class work or workshops with many of the School's core staff including Wyn Jones (Director of Acting), Patsy Rodenburg (Head of Voice), and Wendy Allnutt (Head of Movement). Students work as an ensemble in groups of not more than eighteen.  

• The Guildhall School is situated in the City of London within the Barbican Arts Centre, which houses two theatres, a concert hall, cinemas and galleries. It is also within easy reach of West End theatres, the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal National Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe on the South Bank, Sadler's Wells Theatre and Tate Modern. 

Way to go Terence. Pip, pip and all that. We will want to hear your accent when you return.

The Places You Will Go (With apologies to Dr. Seuss)

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Tonight marks a bittersweet moment for me. Most of those graduating come from my first class at the SAU Honors College. We began our journey together in August 2009, me the first year honors director; you honors freshmen. None of us knew then what the future would hold.

When Freud analyzed his patients's dreams, he knew what dreaming of a voyage symbolized. To him, it represented our lifelong journey from birth to death. Perhaps, he thought that such a weighty topic needed to be symbolized given its awesome finality.

But, I'm not here to talk about life and death, I'll leave that to the preacher tomorrow. I'm here to talk about a short stretch of your lifelong journey. Somehow, all of you decided to make a stop here in Magnolia, Arkansas.

Some of you had to come a long way to get here. You crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Kenya. You flew across the Pacific Ocean from Korea, Nepal, and China. We are glad you did. Others just crossed a state line or two and still others simply changed their Arkansas zip codes for a while.

I know that when you arrived you thought that four years was a long time. You thought that four years would last forever. What do you think now? How many times have you surprised someone by telling them you will graduate next month? Where did the time go? How did it pass so quickly?

I want you to think about the next stage of your life's journey. Most of you will be leaving SAU behind and moving on to other places and tasks. All of you have plans and aspiration for the years to come. Graduate school, professional school, and craft apprenticeships await you. Those next stages, too, will pass more quickly than you might think possible.

You have changed over your years here. The videos we just watched are ample proof of what you were then. But, you also changed us, your teachers. Education is a two-way street. Teachers learn from their students too. I learned about China, Korea, and Nepal. About athletic training, the theatre, Robert's Rules of Order, frog calls, stem cells, and poetry.

I know you learned something too. It may not yet be apparent to you, what you learned, that is. Gradually, however, you'll start to realize just how much you did pick up on your stopover in Magnolia. Your backpack is a little heavier now than it was when you first showed up.

Here's the thing, though. Your journey is far from over. At your next stop you will encounter a new set of challenges, ones that you are now ready to meet head on. Ones that four years ago would have easily overcome you because you were not yet ready to face them. Now you are ready. Snug up the straps on your back pack, walk out the door, hit the road confidently. Your future awaits.

Some of us, myself included, have already journeyed long. Yet, we are not yet tired, or even better, not yet REtired! We may have slowed our pace and we may limit how far we travel (it's two miles to Walmart, btw). But we are not yet ready to stop. Furthermore, we are rekindled year after year by you, our fellow travelers. We also profit by the time we spent here with you.

So, thank you for having journeyed to the SAU Honors College. Thank you for spending some of your precious time with us. It's time for both us to move on. Godspeed, and feel free to drop in again any time, no need to call first.

Congratulations, we love you, we'll miss you, you'll always be in our thoughts and prayers.

Oh, and you are welcome back any time. Also, when you write the SAU Foundation put the words Honors College on your donations.

Biology Students Present Posters

Honors students in Dr. Krosnick's Biology Colloquium class presented posters today

Valerie Maangi presented a poster entitled "Dental Stem Cells and Their Potentiality in Tissue Regeneration." The purpose of her research was to study the potential benefits in using dental stem cells for tooth loss and the prevention of dental diseases and analyze current research and findings on the topic already.

 Deana Hughes presented a poster entitled "The Scoop on Poop Groups." In this research, Hughes surveyed elk and mule deer populations in the Kaibab National Forest on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The purpose of the research was to examine elk and mule deer populations in order to ensure that the non-native elk were not out-competing native mule deer for precious resources.

Lauren Russell presented a poster entitled "Investigation of Pond Water Quality at Southern Arkansas University." The purpose of the research was to study the effects of the surroundings on the ponds at SAU and begin to establish a water quality baseline for these ponds, something not in place on the SAU campus.