Bucket List Lilly Smutz

 As a freshman, I have many ideas about what I want to accomplish and experience. Career wise I plan to start out as a Registered Nurse and I want to use this platform to bring more awareness and change to a cause very close to my heart, sexual and domestic violence. 

My goal is to become a forensic nurse and help victims not only gather evidence from their attackers but to help them heal. What inspired me was the show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit; I had no idea that law enforcement and healthcare could work in conjunction to help people. 

On the other hand, I have my personal aspirations. I love to travel, I have been all over the west coast and I am hoping to go to Florida within the next year and a half. Similarly, I want to travel the world. Places like Japan, Ireland, and Greece have always been a dream of mine to visit. A hobby of mine is learning and researching other countries' cultures and religions; my personal favorite being Greek mythology. 

This love stemmed from my love of reading; I learned to read when I was 4 years old and I have never stopped. Something I’ve been doing for a while is collecting classical literature: Bronte, Shakespeare, Salinger, these authors wrote about a time from the past and I believe that we must all learn from the past to create a better future.

Bucket List: Matison Williams

As a sister and daughter, I plan to spend time with Heidi Williams, Matthew Williams and Caira Williams. They live in Hampton, Arkansas.  I recently bought books and plan to spend a good amount of time with these books. It would be nice to go back and buy more soon. I love to travel in my mind with all the book worlds. In those, I have been everywhere from London to New Orleans. I plan to visit a fictional camp in Maine and a New York City apartment in the next week or two. When not reading I enjoy actual traveling. I have been to Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Tennesse, Alabama and Kentucky. I am planning to go to the Bahamas in the summer of 2025 and Bora Bora for my graduation trip in 2028.  I desire to travel to all 50 states and 7 continents. 

Two Lead Authors! Rennard and Bretz

 Two Honors College students recently each published articles in the Proceedings of the 9th North American Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Washington DC, USA, June 4-6, 2024.

Noah Bretz (above) was lead author (with Hayder Zghair and Jeffrey Sumner) of: 

Machining variables optimization for sustainability manufacturing.

Zachary Rennard (above) was lead author (with Hayder Zghair and Jeffrey Sumner) of:

Power consumption optimization for substainable manufacturing operation.

Way to go! Publishing as an undergraduate is unusual and demonstrates a willingness to go the extra mile.

Honors Arkansas Retreat 2024

SAU's Honors College department members attended the sixth annual Honors Arkansas Retreat at Mt. Magazine State Park this past weekend. Members from various honors departments across Arkansas met to discuss the current state of honors, as well as goals and plans for Honors Arkansas in the future. 

Honors Arkansas plans to host a research class in the Spring of 2025 discussing various Health and Wellness topics. This research class will be available to attend virtually on Tuesdays from 5-6 pm.  

It was announced that there will be a virtual session on Perfectionism on September 4th at 4 pm, hosted by the Council on Honors Education (CoHE). There will also be a virtual panel discussion about the crisis in Sudan on October 22nd at 2 pm, which will be hosted by UAF. 

The SAU Honors department members use these annual retreats to gain a deeper outlook on all of Honors Arkansas and develop new ideas to implement into the Honors College at SAU. 

        Pictured above are the Honors Arkansas 2024 Retreat attendees

Jason Saldana Joins the USAF

 

Jason Saldana

SAU Honors College graduate Jason Saldana has joined the United States Air Force. He reports for training later this summer in San Antonio, Texas.

He will train to become a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape Specialist (SERE).

The Air Force defines that specialty as follows:

Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) Specialists are the only DoD specialty specifically trained, equipped, organized, and employed to conduct SERE operations for the duration of their career. They are the DoD's subject matter experts to prepare and support personnel designated as High Risk of Isolation. SERE Specialists are members of the Guardian Angel weapon system, focused on Personnel Recovery (PR) and provide support to the five PR execution tasks; Report, Locate, Support, Recover, and Reintegrate. SERE Specialist duties range from instruction of formal courses to direct operational unit support at Active Duty, Guard and Reserve locations in continental U.S. and overseas.

Corbitt Lead Author

 Recent SAU Honors College grad, Anna Corbitt, is the lead author of the article below. Way to go Anna!

Anna Corbitt

 

A. Corbitt, W. G. Schwartz, C. Farnell, J. C. Balda and H. A. Mantooth, "The National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission Test Facility," in IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics, doi: 10.1109/OJPEL.2024.3405311.

Honors College Report

 Honors College Report, May 22, 2024

By the numbers:

15 graduates in May, 4 in December

24 incoming students already accepted

30 sophomores enrolled

40 seniors enrolled

2 concurrent students
9 extended probation (all had made progress toward 3.25 GPA)

 

Total: 151 enrolled

3 dropped from Honors College

 

Full Honors Courses Fall 2024-25

PSCI-4333 001

241S

2352241S

AT:Politics/PopMus-H

McQuiston, James

3.00

0

2

0

 

PSYC-4113 001

241S

2372241S

AdvTp:Postive Psyc-H

McCartney, Brian

3.00

0

6

0

 

We have contacted Admissions about adding new honors students to either of those courses. In addition, our BAM table will have descriptions of each course. Recall that incoming honors students must enroll in at least one full honors course during their tenure at SAU.

 

I’m confident that Positive Psychology will make, less so about Pop Music and Politics.

 

FYI, one of our Spring 2025 full honors courses, 3D printing is sure to make, given its overwhelming popularity in the student poll. That course was not offered in Fall 2024 because of ENGR’s accreditation. The other Spring 2025 course has not yet been selected.

 

Matriculation 2024

Will be Sunday, September 15 at 2 PM in Reynolds

That is a home football weekend, so parents may already be in town.

The speaker will be Taylor McNeel Wiseman, our first Hallman Scholar. She and her husband will be leaving DC for Fort Smith where he’ll be a stockbroker. She is looking for a position in NW AR.

 

Recruiting and Retention

We emailed all of the eligible junior scholars recently and gave them information about the Honors College. Recall both days for their visit were cancelled.

We are prepared for BAM and expect to recruit 20 to 30 new students there.

We are cracking down on current students urging them to get their honors contracts in by our end of previous semester deadline.

We will re-emphasize the need for honors students to register early. That is a benefit many do not avail themselves of sufficiently.

 

Issues

Admission Page dropped 5/10/24, restored 5/21/24, works now. (This is due to server changes)

 

Travel

Honors Arkansas Retreat is 8/1 to 8/3. Kardas, Odendaal, and Watson will attend.

NCHC meets in Kansas City beginning on 10/30/24. Kardas and Odendaal will attend.