Honors College Report

Honors College Report

8 April 2016

Personnel:

• Dr. Kardas' assignment was changed to half-time director early in the 2015 Fall semester.
• David Wingfield's assignment was changed to full-time and his title was changed to assistant director in March 2016.

Extramural Education:

• Dr. Kardas visited Havana in June 2015 with the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce tour group. His mission was to make contact with the Ministry of Higher Education and the University of Havana. He did so and was invited to participate in the February 2016 Universidad 2016 meeting in Havana.
• Upon his return, Dr. Kardas was named chair the Ad Hoc Extramural Education Committee. That committee prepared materials about SAU programs that might be potentially attractive to Cuban faculty and students. Dr. Juping Wang translated the materials and Josh Jenkins served them on the SAU Web page: (http://web.saumag.edu/espanol/)
• Dr. Kardas and Dr. Wang spent nearly a week in Havana attending the Universidad 2016 meeting and met with over a dozen Cuban universities and visited two of them.
• The University of Artemisa, visited by Wang, has responded favorably to our efforts to set up an exchange program. SAU and Artemisa should sign an MOU soon.
• The first exchange, most likely, will be for SAU to send Steven Ochs and two art students to Artemisa to work collaboratively on a decorative concrete project.
• The next step would be to host a group from Artemisa here and work on another decorative concrete project.
• Another trip to Cuba. On 9 May 2016, two students (one in Honors College), an community member, three SAU personnel, and two others will travel to Havana, Santa Clara, and Cienfuegos for an 9-day EF trip.
• Paris. Another EF trip is in the works, this one for May 2017, to Paris. There is still time to sign up.

Students:

• In December, the Honors College graduated three students.
• In May, the College will graduate 22 students.
• In August, the College with graduate 2 more.
• Three students, Clai Morehead, Zachary Hardy, and Kayla O'Neal traveled to Chicago to present their posters at the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) meeting.
• Honors students Rachel Jett, Ranger Pennington, and Talia Burton attended the national meeting of Sigma Tau Delta and presented their original works.
• Several students are currently awaiting word as to whether their presentations to NCHC will be accepted.
• The Honors College provided partial funding for several student projects: to Dr. Tucker to help purchase 23 and Me kits, to Dr. Bachri to buy helium, to Dr. Boucher to purchase Arduino starter kits, to English and Foreign Languages for student travel to Sigma Tau Delta meeting, to Dr. Sulkowski to purchase chemicals, to Dr. Lyubartseva for a chromatography kit and an immuno explorer kit, and to Ms. Bradshaw to purchase seeds and other materials for horticulture.

Honors Research

• Kardas and Wingfield submitted a faculty poster to NCHC titled: A Database for Honors Research. That poster will summarize several years work in the development of a Web database designed to make finding research about collegiate honors easier. They will make a presentation to the Faculty Colloquium Series this coming Wednesday.