UCA Freshman Honors Scholars Attend Fall Retreat at Winthrop Rockefeller Institute
The University of Central Arkansas Honors College welcomed 63 incoming first-year Honors Scholars during its annual community-building retreat and writing workshop at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain. Paula Morell, executive producer of the syndicated Tales from the South radio show, provided the workshop’s keynote address. The new class also read Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward, Angel ” in preparation for writing their own literary memoirs.
Honors Scholars receive UCA’s most prestigious scholarship package, reside in a living-learning community in Jefferson W. Farris Honors Hall, and participate in a unique interdisciplinary curriculum with ample opportunities for service learning, project-based education, collaborative work, undergraduate research and travel or internship support.
The incoming class has 37 women and 26 men.
The Class of 2012 includes 10 valedictorians, 4 salutatorians and 30 students with an ACT test score of 30 or higher (that set of scores includes the top 3% of test scores in the country). In addition, the records of the entire class include an average high school cumulative GPA of 4.081 and an average ACT test score of 29.3. The class of 2012 includes eight students from out of state, including students from Colorado, Texas, and Missouri. From this class, eight of these Honors students will be participating in music ensembles of band, choir or orchestra and four of these Honors students will be participating in intercollegiate athletics.
Honors students may choose any major they wish from the large variety of possibilities at UCA. The chart below shows the majors that new Honors students plan at the beginning of the fall 2012.
Established in 1982, UCA’s Honors College enrolls 276 students in its four-year undergraduate program. Its five-fold mission is to recruit and retain high-ability students for the University’s major programs, to foster the scholarly arts, to provide opportunities for the development of leadership skills, to produce thoughtful and active citizens and to form a community of engaged students through innovative programming.
The names and high schools of the selected students are as follows:
Katelyn Allison – Northwest High School (Justin, TX)
Jered Bryan – Central Arkansas Christian
Shannon Caldwell – Clarendon High School
Ashton Cheatham – Jonesboro High School
Cal Clifton – Northside High School
Carter Crain – Pleasant Grove High School (Texarkana, TX)
Stephanie Daigle – Mount Saint Mary Academy
Stephanie Dayer – Conway High School
Kat Demaree – Mountain View High School (Loveland, CO)
Jessica Depew – Rogers Heritage High School
Kaylee DeWees – St. Joe High School
Holly Dickson – Conway, AR
Ethan Erwin – Lakeside High School
Jack Evans – Conway High School
Heather Forsythe – North Little Rock High School
Leesia Fugett – Cave City High School
Elizabeth Gambertoglio – Oak Ridge High School (Conroe, TX)
Sarah Gentry – Central Arkansas Christian
Santi Gonzalez – North Little Rock High School
Kelsey Gregory – Gravette High School
Christina Griffin – Benton High School
Natalia Hardgrave – Lamar High School
Mollie Mae Henager – Conway High School
Katie Hill – Lake Hamilton High School
Misti Hollenbaugh – Greenbrier High School
Desstoni Holman – North Little Rock High School
Dylan Housh – Pocahontas High School
Alex Hoyle – Alma High School
Collin Hutson – Paris High School
Ivana Ilic – Lake Hamilton High School
Bradyn Jeffus – Bald Knob HIgh School
Gordon Jensen – Little Rock Christian Academy
Hannah Jones – Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School
Courtney Kordsmeier – Mount Saint Mary Academy
Landon Lee – Benton High School
Jeremy Light – Star City High School
Jessica Lipe – eStem Public Charter High School
Tyler Love – Beebe High School
John Marasco – Russellville High School
Maggie McNeary – Charleston High School (Charleston, MO)
Emily Merrell – Jonesboro High School
Jamie Miller – Lincoln High School
Sierra Moon – Sheridan High School
Hallie Mossman – Batesville High School
Nathan Musso – Rogers High School
Houston Naugher – North Little Rock High School
Jojo Oluokun – Greenbier High School
Courtney O’Brien – Garrett Memorial Christian School
Laken Parker – Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts
Jordan Pfaff – Hallsville High School (Hallsville, TX)
Tyler Ramsey – Little Rock Catholic High School
Amber Rolland – Buffalo Island Central High School
Jacob Rose – Little Rock Central High School
Tanya Savenka – Little Rock Central High School
Madison Sewell – Texas High School (Texarkana, TX)
Daniel Shrum – Mountain Home High School
Maddie Spickard – Little Rock Central High School
Melia Stearns – Little Rock Christian Academy
Kenny Stice – Plano Senior High School (Plano, TX)
Lori Beth Stroderd – Spring Hill High School
Alyson Tyler – Heritage High School
Tanner VanDevender – Bauxite High School
Lee White – Bergman High School
Honors College Graduates and Destinations
Wilson Alobuia – major: Biology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UAMS Health Sciences
Dulce Armas – major: Sociology; minors: Anthropology, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; applied to the Surgical Tech program at Baptist Health
Brett Bailey – major: Economics; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UAMS College of Pharmacy
Lennon Bates – major: Biology; minors: Anthropology; Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Texas State University Anthropology (Biological Anthropology)
Sara Bayles – majors: Political Science, Religious Studies; minors: Gender Studies, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Duke Divinity School
Justin Bird – major: English; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; U Missouri English
Ty Bittle – major: Public Administration; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UCA Community & Economic Development
Lindsey Cason – major: Insurance & Risk Management; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
TsungYen Chen – major: Chemistry; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UAMS College of Medicine
Sarah Clarke – major: Marketing; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Kohl’s management, then UT Austin Market Research
Ayvee Cruz – major: Nursing; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Megan Danielson – majors: Political Science, Philosophy; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UALR Bowen School of Law
Destiny Davis – major: Biology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UC Davis Plant Pathology
Brittany Edwardes – major: English; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Fulbright in Malaysia
David Friesen – majors: Finance, Accounting; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; FDIC Memphis
Jessica Gambill – major: Chemistry; minors: Biology, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UAMS College of Medicine
Austin Hall – major: Political Science; minors: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies, Public Administration
Leanne Hampton – major: Music; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; U Colorado-Boulder Music
Amber Haydar – major: English; minors: Spanish, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; U Tennessee-Knoxville English
Bryan Head – major: Biology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UAMS College of Pharmacy
Kathy Hill – major: Sociology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Fulbright in Korea
Mary Beth Hill – major: Marketing; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; J.B. Hunt
Andrew Hoelscher – major: Religious Studies; minors: Sociology, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Johnson Intern Program of the Episcopal Service Corps
Cody Hudson – major: Computer Science; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UCA Computer Science
Justin Hughes – majors: International Studies, Economics; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; U Minnesota Law School
Jenn Hynum – major: Digital Filmmaking; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies;
Stefani Johnson – major: Theatre; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Jordan Karpe – major: Art; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UCA Math Education
Daniel Keil – major: Biology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; U Maryland-College Park Biology
Shannon Kelly – majors: International Studies, Spanish; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Teach for America
Eliza Killey – major: English; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UCA English
Doug Knight – major: Creative Writing; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; International Episcopal Service Corps
Jenny Knight – major: Environmental Science; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; International Episcopal Service Corps
Casey Mikula – major: Economics; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Auburn MBA
Shannon Miller – major: English; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; professional au pair
Elizabeth Naglak – major: Biology; minors: Chemistry, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UAMS Microbiology & Immunology
Alisha Neblett – majors: English, Modern Languages; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Boston U Teaching English as a Second Language
Lynn Nguyen – major: Biology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
German Perez – major: Chemistry; minors: Mathematics, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; graduate school in Chemical Engineering
Kenneth Petre – major: Psychology; minors: Art, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UCA Psychology
Kate Pitts – major: English; minors: Anthropology, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies;
Kim Risi – major: Digital Filmmaking; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Florida State Film School
Mallory Roberson – major: Sociology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies;
Nicholas Rogers – major: Modern Languages, International Studies; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; competitive cycling
Renee Ronquillo – major: English; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Johnson & Wales Culinary Institute
Patrick Russell – majors: English, Philosophy; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; U Nevada Reno Environmental Literature
Cathrine Schwader – major: Sociology; minors: Anthropology, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Clinton School of Public Service
Joanna Sence – major: Health Sciences (Physical Therapy); minors: Spanish, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UCA Physical Therapy
Chip Shaw – major: Insurance & Risk Management; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Kat Short – major: History; minors: Anthropology, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Rachel Sims – major: Spanish; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UCA Spanish
Gregory Sketas – majors: Biology, Philosophy; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UAMS College of Medicine
Natasha Skiver – major: Biology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; CNA
Zack Stallings – major: Mathematics; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Jonesboro Engines, Inc. designing John Deere tractors
Sam Tamo – majors: International Studies, Sociology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Skipper Thurman – major: Physics; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; graduate school in Engineering
Naru Tsukuda – major: Political Science; minors: Music, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Bank of Japan
Adrea Walker – major: Economics; minor: Spanish; Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; U.S. Coast Guard
Shalisa Walker – major: Speech-Language Pathology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Ron Walter – major: Digital Filmmaking; minors: Economics, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Lesley Waterson – major: Spanish; minors: English, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Clint White – major: English; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UALR Bowen School of Law
Ben Wold – major: Biology; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; musician
Sarah Wray – major: Nursing; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies
Garrett Wright – major: History; minors: Anthropology, Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; UNC Chapel Hill History
Andrew Yu – major: MIS; minor: Honors Interdisciplinary Studies; Acxiom Tester
Graduation Banquet Speech: Skipper Thurman
It’s wonderful to be here with all of you tonight. I am especially grateful to have been given the opportunity to speak at this banquet, even though the cost of doing so is that I now owe Doug Corbitt my first born son. I would like to apologize to my wife and mother for this, but that is just how much I desire attention.
For this speech I want to offer you a perspective on life that I have gained through the Honors College. I can’t generalize what going through the Honors College has meant for all of you, but I want to share with you how it has affected me and perhaps you will find kernels of truth for yourselves. My perspective comes from the realization that no person is offered a “manual” for how to live. None of the important decisions or milestones that define our lives come with instructions for how we should proceed. Please allow me to provide you with some examples from my own life, and get ready because I am going to carry this “manual” metaphor really far.
I have a long history with UCA. My parents met at the Wesley Foundation on campus while they were students here in 1986. By August of that year they were married. I was born one year later, on a glorious day in November. My mother was still in school at the time and my father was training in battle skills at Camp Robinson for the army, so I was often carried to my mom’s classes. This means that I attended my first lecture at UCA as an infant, although my dad has pointed out that technically my first lecture would have been attended ‘in utero.’ Either way I have deep roots here.
When my 21-year-old mother left the hospital with me, she was not handed a baby manual on the way out. I can only sympathize with how daunting it must be to realize that the care and nurturing of a new human depends all on you. I have been told that having children makes you realize what’s truly important to you, because what you really value is what you want to pass on to them. But what can prepare a person for that task? We seem to look to religion, tradition, society, medicine, and a host of philosophies and ideas to inform us of how to go about it. Ultimately, my parents used all of these influences, along with a lot of trial and error, to form their own manual for how to raise my brother and me.
Now fast forward to 2009. Every year the freshmen in the Honors College go on a weekend retreat to Petit Jean. I was sitting alone at the back of the bus when a girl approached and asked if the seat next to me was taken. I said no. I thought that having a beautiful and sweet-smelling girl sitting with me, unsolicited, on the ride was both nerve-wracking and totally awesome. It may have been the only open seat left on the bus, but I wasn’t complaining. We discovered that we had been raised in close proximity to each other; I was from Mountain View and she was from Calico Rock, about 20 miles away. We talked the whole way down and rode back together too. This was of course Jordan Meinzer, who has since become Jordan Thurman and my precious wife. A couple months after the retreat, emboldened by the lofty philosophies of Sartre and Kierkegaard I was learning in Doug’s Honors Core I class, I asked her out for hot cocoa and we began dating. One year later I proposed and on the 28th of this month we’ll celebrate our first wedding anniversary.
Marriage is another example of a decision for which there is no manual. There is no guarantee of its success, no guidelines that work for every couple, and yet it is a decision which affects your entire life. How does one go about choosing to dive into such an endeavor? How can one be comfortable that he or she is making the right choice? And how does one prepare for dealing with a great unknown?
Questions like these are where I think the Honors College has deeply influenced me. On the surface, the Honors College would appear to just be teaching us the works of great thinkers and how to be better writers. But there is something far more profound happening here. The Honors College has led me to believe two things. First, that I can write much of my own manual. I can build a good life for myself and I can change things in this world for the better. Second, other people have already written parts of my manual for me, but by understanding what was written and who wrote it I can edit my manual and know myself better. Part of who we are is due to forces we can’t control; like genetics and culture. The Honors College provides us with tools to help us analyze what shaped who we are today, and perhaps we can use that to shape our future selves. With that in mind I can take comfort in building a meaningful marriage and a meaningful career because I have the freedom to give these things meaning.
The Honors College has accomplished these things in part by getting us to think critically about a broad range of difficult subjects from multiple disciplines. I do believe there is value in being interdisciplinary, and it goes far beyond simply having more information. By showing me how to find connections in knowledge, the Honors College has helped me see the value of my own efforts in physics, but also in the work of my peers. Whatever it is that has inspired my classmates to have the passion they do for their subjects, the Honors College has provided an atmosphere where this passion may fuel others who love knowledge. My classmates have given me enormous insight into the worth of their studies. When Wilson Alobuia talks about medicine, when Kate insinuates that Yeats was great (that’s Kate Pitts), when Jordan Karpe creates such beautiful art, when Justin Hughes draws his weird-looking economics graphs, or when Patrick Russell explains ecology, here I see that all of you have great dedication and understanding for what you do. My classmates elevate the curriculum by building interdisciplinary thinking into how they connect with one another and when they carry it outside of the University great things will happen.
I think this type of mindset that lends itself to being passionate about scholarship can extend far beyond academics. We have now spent several years of our lives trying to understand how to analyze literature or how to set up a scientific experiment and we convince ourselves that doing so has a purpose. That process of validation is what we are doing with much of what is meaningful in our lives. Nobody gets a phone call with a confirmation saying, “Now you’re a man,” or “Congratulation, now you’re a good girlfriend.” It is up to us to figure out how to make such things realities for ourselves. And don’t we all want to be passionate about everything we do? The good professors, I think there are several here right now, are passionate when they go into the classroom with the knowledge that they are helping shape young minds. The activists among you are passionate when you commit yourselves to helping solve social issues. All of the parents here tonight, you have clearly done something right because your sons and daughters here are exceptionally intelligent, hard-working and kind. People in love, trying to form a meaningful bond with each other, have to find passion for their relationship. There are no manuals available for how to do any of these things, which makes it special when they are accomplished well. And I hope you see a common thread for success in all of these endeavors. I think it is an enormous amount of love. Love for learning, love for humanity and love for all that we live by. My mom may have fed me sweet tea in my bottle when I was a baby, but she also gave me a great deal of love, and I turned out mostly all right. I am going to continue putting love into science and mathematics. I look forward to pouring as much love as I can into my marriage and I fully expect it to be amazing.
The Honors College has offered me a glimpse into a way of living a more full life through examination. It is certainly not the only way, but I am eager to go out and practice this theory on the world. It is exciting to think of the potential among the students here as they go their separate ways with conviction for how they want to affect change. I firmly believe that individuals can shape the world, although I didn’t when I started here. That lesson alone is worth something. I am sincerely grateful to have gotten to spend all the time that I have with all of you, thanks for being my friends. I want to wish you all luck in writing your own manuals. And now I must end on a poem. For my own instructions on how I think we should proceed from here I offer you “Figs” by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light.
Graduation Banquet Speech: Jenny Knight
Four years ago, maybe five for some of us, we were gearing up to graduate high school, probably the biggest milestone in our lives up to that point. We were spending far too much money on prom, diligently studying for AP exams (as all good Honors students do) and looking forward to spending the next four years in the Honors College at UCA with our own private bedroom! Little did we know we were about to embark on a journey that would be just as challenging as it was rewarding.
I guess it all started at I² day. Approximately 1/3 of you will recall, there was torrential downpour on this day. Oh, what’s that, you want to take my picture? So you can identify us in small-group discussion? No problem! (5 months later…) OH NO THEY DIDN’T! How could they? How long does this picture stay up? 2 years?! You’ve got to be kidding me…
And with that, our college career began. We were probably living with people we met at SOAR—a desperate attempt to live with “cool” nerds. We learned how to ride bikes on Petit Jean and met this weird guy who actually knew everybody’s name. I imagine that CORE I was the most interesting and challenging class for us that semester, seeing as we had to get those gen-eds out of the way. What is the “self?” Where do we find it? We explored these questions with the help of our friends Kierkegard and Sarte, Plato, Aristotle, Marx, and who can forget, Neiztche. And we all grasped their philosophies with great ease.
Core II was one of my favorite classes. We turned our focus outward from the self and began looking at the community. What makes up a community? How do individuals selves interact with one another? The course was really quite fitting, because it was around this time that I think we all started to see ourselves as a community. We had new friends join us that semester, but they were welcomed with open arms. And we didn’t just sit with each other at lunch because we didn’t anybody else, we actually enjoyed each other’s company and took advantage of that time to perhaps carry on a discussion from class or not.
Freshmen year was full of adventures, partly thanks to our awesome mentors (Patrick!) for putting on cool events like camp outs! Some of us dove into Greek life, some of us SGA, symphony, biology club…our Honors class pretty much had a fingerprint on all the clubs and organizations on campus. There were most certainly some trials and tribulations that year… a series of late night fire alarms for one, climbing accidents, Honors readings which might as have well been in Latin, and maybe even for some of us, a time of grieving for the loss of close ties with friends and families back home. It’s ok, you can admit it.
Sophomore year brought new respect and responsibility. Some of us were now the mentors offering those cool events like camp outs, we were big brothers and big sisters for the freshmen, we were asked advice, we got to choose our own honors class! Core III was about diversity. How do we see other communities? How are we the same and how are we different? To people outside the honors college, we may just be a bunch of overachieving suck-ups who undeservingly get a private bedroom in our dorm, and to us, they all may just be a bunch of slackers wasting their time and money on half a college education. But I think Core III, (and senior seminar perhaps) has helped us to see that UCA would not be UCA without its Honors College or without every other student, slacker or not. Because the diversity that we bring to our community is what sustains it and keeps it in balance.
Core IV, the search for the arts, was a trying class for me. I think we can all agree that Donna’s film lectures and presentations are probably on our top 5 list of reasons for choosing the Honors College at UCA. So I was super stoked to take her film class. And don’t get me wrong, the class was wonderful, I learned so much about the history of film and got the chance to watch a few classics. But part of the class was actually creating a short film with other students. If there is one person in this room who doesn’t like group work, it’s me. I have a hard time delegating and would often much rather just do the whole thing myself than risk somebody else not doing a good enough job. But I don’t think you can be the actor, director, camera operator, and the producer for a film, so alas alack, a group project it would be. I think we all learned a lot with that experience, and for me, it was really the beginning of a new understanding of community involvement.
We ended sophomore year with sophomore lectures, a short presentation on a topic to essentially prepare us for being a true Honors Scholar. Sophomore lecture, senior thesis, essentially the same right?
We celebrated our achievement with a Rising Scholars Banquet, nice food, fancy dress, and the opportunity to FINALLY update that god-awful picture that’s been hanging in the hallway for 2 years. Junior year was off to a good start. We were on the downhill slope of our undergraduate career and we knew just about everything about everything.
Our junior seminar classes enabled us to get more creative and apply all that we had learned the previous two years in unconventional ways. We gardened, conducted interview research on wineries in Arkansas, read horror stories, knitted and other things seemingly non-related to academia. Some of us served our community by being pedagogical assistants or teaching assistants for freshmen and sophomore courses. We applied for grants that sent us to Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Korea, France, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Rwanda, Belgium, Brazil and all over the United States (and I’m sure a left out a few). We began thinking about thesis topics and ways to incorporate travel and research and unique experiences. We took on internships, research opportunities, or really low-paying summer jobs to try and spark an interest in something that we could throw ourselves into for the next year. Some of us succeeded, some of us had to try again, and again and again to nail down that topic.
I know I began senior year with a hop in my step, as I was gearing up for my last year of college and was about to marry my freshmen neighbor and sweetheart, Doug. Doug and Sam were roommates and lived across the hall. I grew up going to school with Sam, playing in orchestra together, on the soccer team, sneaking into high school prom as sophomores, we were close buds. I can still remember move-in day freshmen year, seeing Sam and his family in the room across the hall from mine. We had been in school together since 3rd grade and were now not just in college together but neighbors. Sam introduced me to Doug, and well, you know the rest. Many of us have met lifelong partners and friends here in this community, but as we’ve been finishing up our classes for our majors and putting the finishing touches on our thesis, I don’t think we’ve had the time to really appreciate each other and how far we have come together.
I mean, do you realize what all we’ve accomplished?
We’ve been given departmental awards for excellence, performed with prestigious musicians, written plays, protested, painted murals, taken graduate level courses—and passed, presented research at national conferences, we’ve stood up for what we believe in against intimidating opposition, traveled the world, created policies, gotten into law school, received Fulbright Awards! And we’ve all done this together.
Parents and family, I want to thank you for supporting us in any capacity that you may have given it. For allowing us to leave the nest and really start a life on our own. I know for me, my parents gave me enough space for me to really feel like I was on my own, but also welcomed me home for dinner any time, and knowing that has been a real blessing.
Faculty and staff, I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you. These past four years have been challenging but rewarding. Thank you for being so intentional about our experience and really putting your heart and soul into our education. It means so much to us to have professors who know us by name, who are interested in carrying on conversations outside the classroom, who seek to facilitate discourse and not just deposit information into the empty bank accounts that are our brains. Sometimes it seems you all are a rare breed, and I hope those of us going into education have taken a note or two on your approach to teaching and can enlighten and motivate others as you have done for us.
Students, I want to thank each and every one of you for being involved and sticking out this journey together. Know that we are all an integral part of this community and have made an impact, whether you realize it or not. If you remember just one thing from this speech or from college in general, I hope it is this: that knowledge and education are the tools with which we move and create in this world, and the best way that we can use those tools is through each other by making connections and seeking to understand one another. Congratulations on your thesis and graduating, and I wish you the best of luck in all your upcoming adventures. Thank you.
Graduation Banquet Speech: Patrick Russell
This is a time of great excitement and relief. Here we go. We are standing at the gates, ready to blast off into our careers, ready to be successful, young professionals, ready to actualize our dreams. We have been prepping for this moment for 22 or more years. Our parents, our friends and family, and our teachers have been grooming us for this pivotal moment–the moment when we step out into the public sphere to give our little spiel, to make our small contribution. But before we all go our separate ways to pursue our dreams and to launch our careers, I ask you to consider that, perhaps, a just as equally rewarding, if not more fulfilling, goal is the maintenance of the relationships you have cultivated with all the people sitting around you tonight.
I am not sure what happens when you die, but I do know this: your last memories will not be about how you made an ‘A’ on an exam, or how you earned a rather high income and drove an awesome car, or how you had fundamentally altered the course of humanity in some profound manner; rather, I am fairly certain that your last memories will be filled with the laughter, joy, trials, hardships, pranks and, ultimately, the love you experienced with those sitting around you tonight–your family and your friends.
So, in a sense, graduation is a time of new beginnings, the opening up of unimaginable possibilities. Let’s make the best of that and celebrate it. However, graduation is also a time of embracing the past, of reflecting upon the beautiful moments of connection we have felt with each other. Our class motto–”Creative spirit, Courageous leadership”–embodies those moments of the past. We were definitely incredibly creative, and not just academically, but also in the way we celebrated life together and pulled pranks on each other. And we were also courageous leaders, in the sense that I saw a few of you here speak out against racial slurs or extend a caring hand to the “uncool” kids on the block. May we carry this motto forward into our personal careers, and may we refer to it as we try to discover the ways and means by which we maintain our relationships with friends and family.
Here’s to the times we comforted a friend because of personal loss and suffering, here’s to the times we felt the joy of learning something new and sharing that knowledge with friends, and here’s to the times we ran across campus in our underwear–may we continue to do all three, especially the last one, for the rest of our lives.
Featured Alumnus: Casey Gambill
Casey Gambill
If you had told me at graduation in 2009 that I would be teaching English to both deaf and hearing students in Spain, my eyebrows would have shot straight up. At that time I still did not know what I wanted to do with my education, a double-major in Linguistics and Spanish and a minor in Honors Interdisciplinary Studies. A few months after graduation, however, I welcomed the next adventure when I discovered I had been awarded a Fulbright Grant to Spain.
As an English-teaching assistant in Madrid, I spent the 2010-2011 school year working at a bilingual high school where I was warmly received; everyone from the secretary to the cleaning staff greeted me with a hearty “Good morning!” I was tickled to find that my position did not relegate me strictly to the teaching of English grammar—on the contrary; the job required me to co-teach subjects from P.E. to social studies to technology.
I was given the opportunity to share aspects of U.S. culture by preparing lessons on geography, literature, Native American tribes, high school slang and holidays. In keeping with the Fulbright Program’s aim to promote cross-cultural communication, I also organized a pen-pal exchange between my Spanish students and rural Arkansan high schoolers who received Spanish-language education from a distance-learning center.
In a teaching position for the first time, I immediately realized that teaching necessitates learning. I had to research grammar to answer questions the humble title of “native English speaker” had not prepared me for; inquiries about auxiliary verbs and phonological rules kept me on my toes. Reading widely about holiday traditions—Just who is this St. Patrick character?—put me as much in the role of learner as that of educator.
I didn’t think twice about signing up for a second year. Thanks to Spain’s current interest in bilingual education, I able to renew at the same high school. A major change in the current school year, however, has been that I am now working with students who have a low to intermediate level of English. In fact, my high school also has deaf students in these classes and I have had to learn tricks for adapting lessons for a group which has both hearing and hearing-impaired members.
After two years as a teaching assistant, I find the idea of my own classroom quite appealing. This fall I plan to make that a reality as I work toward a Master’s Degree in Bilingual and Multicultural Education through the Franklin Institute at the Universidad de Alcalá, one of Spain’s oldest universities.
There’s no denying that my experiences at UCA propelled me along the path I am on today. Spanish, Linguistics and Honors courses gave me important tools I needed to jump into life in another country. Studying abroad, as well as interacting with international students on the UCA campus, made me eager to encourage the cultural exchange embodied in the pillars of the Fulbright Program. When I came to Spain I was unsure if I was cut out to be a “profe,” as teachers here are affectionately called, but this fall I look forward to pursuing a degree in the teaching field—and to the next big adventure.
Featured Alumna: Beth Ann Estes
Today I finished my second year as a Political Science doctoral student at Vanderbilt University. The last two years have been both challenging and rewarding. I’ve taken a lot of interesting classes, had the opportunity to lead discussion sections for an introductory political philosophy course and have gotten to know several incredible scholars. I’ve also developed my own research interests and will begin a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which will allow me to focus exclusively on my research for three years, this June. The research I’m currently working on deals with emotions and intergroup relations. More specifically, I am investigating the way that emotions felt toward one group influences emotions felt toward other groups and thus support for policies affecting those groups. For example, in a pilot experiment I found that asking American respondents to think about a hypothetical, negative encounter with an illegal immigrant (as opposed to a hypothetical, negative encounter with an ambiguous person) increases opposition to gay adoption. Over the next several months/years I hope to uncover other connections that move beyond the conflict between two specific groups. I think this holistic approach to understanding intergroup relations is vital if we truly desire to prevent all types of intergroup hostility and discrimination.
As I think about the last two years and my developing research interests, I cannot help but be amazed at how influential my Honors College education has been for getting me to where I am today. I feel like I had an easier transition to the graduate school environment than my peers from the start; I had experience with discussions in a seminar setting and the opportunity to develop close relationships with my professors as an undergraduate whereas many of my fellow graduate students completed their undergraduate studies at universities where most classes exceeded 200 students and student-faculty relationships were, for the most part, much more hierarchical.
I also give credit to the constant interaction I had with people from a variety of very different majors during my Honors College days for my ability to develop research interests that stretch across multiple disciplines and explain those ideas in an accessible way. This skill was especially useful when I was applying for the NSF fellowship, which evaluates applications heavily on the “broader impact” of the intended project. I would not have been as successful explaining my idea to sociologists (who fall under the social science umbrella and thus were potentially on the review panel) if I had not had ample practice within the Honors College explaining my ideas to everyone from mathematicians to artists on a regular basis. This skill has already proven invaluable, and I think it will continue to help me throughout my career as I attempt to make an impact not only on my discipline but society as a whole.
I would sincerely like to extend my gratitude to all of the Honors College faculty, staff and students for helping me build the skills I need to be successful graduate student and beyond. I cannot thank you enough, and I look forward to what the future holds.
Senior URGE Awards: Jenny Knight – Environmental Science: Planning and Administration
In the summer of 2011, I worked full-time during the summer at the Conway Planning and Development Department (CPDD) as the Special Programs Assistant. I was working to fulfill three hours of internship credit for my environmental science major. Unfortunately, the position was not a paying job. The first URGE award, $1060, covered my living expenses while I was working in addition to a small stipend.
The major project that I worked on during my internship was the crafting of an urban agriculture policy. This entailed research of other municipal policies as well as current Conway policies. With this information, I developed a 4-page ordinance amendment that if adopted, would become part of Conway’s official Zoning Ordinance. In addition to working on the urban agriculture policy, I did smaller assignments such as making maps, helping develop an urban agriculture tool-kit and taking pictures to document current agricultural activities within the city.
I returned to the CPDD in the fall of 2011 to begin additional research for my Honors Senior Thesis. With the help of my internship advisor, Wes Craiglow, I came up with the idea to facilitate public input sessions to revise the policy I drafted in the summer. After taking Doug Corbitt’s senior seminar class on democracy, I was eager to apply the philosophy of the democratic process and see it in action. The second URGE award, $800, compensated for the hours I had to cut back at my job in order to work for CPDD. It also covered expenses related to facilitating the meetings such as running off fliers, refreshments, gas, etc.
My work during the fall and spring consisted of holding a total of nine public meetings. These meetings were facilitated by me and throughout all the meetings, about 50 people participated in the process. We would normally meet for about 90 minutes to discuss different aspects of the policy and amend it to more accurately reflect the needs and concerns of the citizens. This process was incredibly enriching because it allowed me to experience firsthand the joys and troubles of democracy. At least one of the meetings makes my list of top five most horrifying experiences of my life; however, the positive feedback that I received from supporters and opponents alike makes my list of top five most rewarding experiences of my life.
After the public meetings were over, I presented the final draft of the policy to City Council (March 27, 2012). This was a chance for me to make a case for the adopting of the policy. There will be a chance for the public to voice their opinions, for or against, at an upcoming meeting when the policy is put on the agenda for a public hearing. But as for me, the hard part is over. It is up to the public to decide whether or not it wants to support the passage of this ordinance and to convince City Council members for a yay or nay vote.
I took this entire experience, the policy creation and following democratic process, and used it as a case study for exploring the stressful yet necessary nature of democracy. My thesis delves into the democratic process, drawing on anecdotes and personal commentary, to enhance my research of centuries of philosophers and their insight into democratic practices. I am very grateful for the financial support from the Honors College and UCA that enabled me to take on my summer internship and thus opened the doors for my thesis research. I was able to incorporate much of internship experience as well as Honors’ curriculum into my final thesis project. Additionally, the field experience working with the planning department has greatly enhanced my qualifications for Masters of Planning graduate programs.