Spring Commencement set for May 8
Arkansas State University in Jonesboro will hold spring commencement in the Convocation Center Saturday, May 8, with one ceremony scheduled for 10 a.m. and the other at 2:30 p.m. More than 1,350 students on the graduate and undergraduate levels participating in both ceremonies will hear U.S. Representative Marion Berry’s (D-AR) commencement speech. The morning ceremony will include graduates from the Colleges of Agriculture, Business, Fine Arts, Nursing and Health Professions, and Science and Mathematics. The afternoon ceremony includes the Colleges of Communications, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Social Sciences, and University College. Chancellor Robert L. Potts will present diplomas. Additionally, the graduation ceremonies will be streamed live on the internet at mms://streamer.astate.edu/asutv. A brief reception for all graduates, their guests, and faculty and staff will be held on the north mezzanine following each of the commencement ceremonies. Everyone is invited to attend. Rep. Berry, who announced in January that he will not seek re-election, has served the state of Arkansas for seven terms. He was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1996 and has represented the people of Arkansas' First Congressional District since 1997. For details, see the NewsPage release.

ASU Board of Trustees meeting set for May 7
The ASU Board of Trustees meeting will be held Friday, May 7, at 10 a.m. in the boardroom on the 8th floor of the Dean B. Ellis Library. Check the ASU System website (http://www.asusystem.edu/) for the meeting agenda Friday morning.

Four cadets to be commissioned in May 7 ceremony
ASU’s Military Science Department will commission four ROTC cadets into the United States Army, during a ceremony Friday, May 7, at 3-4:30 p.m. in ASU’s Convocation Center Auditorium. A reception in the lounge will follow immediately after the ceremony, and the public is welcome to attend both the ceremony and the reception. Retired Colonel Jerry W. Bowen, Undersecretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and member of the ROTC Hall of Heroes, will be the guest speaker. The cadets are Heather A. Dapp of Jonesboro, Ark.; Martin L. Fowler of Kennett, Mo.; Taylor O. Headley of Jonesboro, Ark.; and Dustin T. West of Woodlawn, Ark. For details, contact Penny Payne, Department of Military Science, at ext. 2064.

State political science association meeting held at ASU
Many faculty members and students from the ASU Political Science Department participated in the 2010 annual meeting of the Arkansas Political Science Association, which met recently on the ASU-Jonesboro campus, attracting participants from Arkansas and several other states. Five faculty members presented papers, eight served as panel chairs and discussants, and seven students made academic presentations during the two-day meeting. Tina Botts presented a paper, “The Ideal of Equality: Reconciling the Particular with the Universal Inside the Liberal Paradigm;” Dr. Charles Hartwig and Richard Hartwig of Texas A and M University-Kingsville presented a paper, “The United States as a Declining World Power;” Dr. Jon Lofton presented “Assessing the Operational Level of Municipal Electronic Government Systems in Arkansas;” Dr. Cathy Reese and ASU MPA graduate student Patrick Hilson presented a paper on “Content Analysis of Tobacco Settlement Funding Decision Coverage in Arkansas;” and Dr. Louella Moore of the ASU Accounting Department presented a paper, “Political and Fiscal Issues in Arkansas Higher Education.” Chairing and serving as discussants on different panels and roundtables were ASU Political Science faculty members Dr. Mihaela Czobor-Lupp, Dr. David Harding, Dr. Charles Hartwig, Dr. David Levenbach, Dr. William McLean, Dr. Rollin Tusalem, Dr. Richard Wang, who appeared on two panels, and Dr. Barbara Warner. The master's degree students who served on a panel looking at the relative merits of six international organizations as agents of development were Martha Calvin, David McAvoy, Martin Okolik, Miranda Remaklus, Donnie Scroggins, and Alamgir Shakir, as well as undergraduate student Sarah Campbell, who presented  “Comparing Grandparents’ Visitation Rights: A Wicked Problem.” Political columnist John Brummett spoke to attendees at the banquet dinner Friday evening and Dr. William McLean served as the program chairman for the conference, and was elected vice president/president-elect of the association.

Warner Presents Paper at Political Science Conference
Dr. Barbara Warner, visiting assistant professor of Political Science, recently presented a paper and served as a discussant at the Southwestern Political Science Association conference in Houston. Dr. Warner’s paper, “Preaching Us Into War: How Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush Used Religious Rhetoric to Make the Case for War,” was presented in a panel, “Presidential Leadership.” She also served as a discussant on another panel, “The Effects of Media on Tolerance and Political Knowledge.” As the primary author, Dr. Warner presented on behalf of her University of Arkansas co-authors, Dr. Brinck Kerr, professor of Political Science and director of the Public Policy Ph.D. Program, and Dr. Andrew Dowdle, associate professor and vice-chair of the Department of Political Science and editor of the American Review of Politics, a journal. Dr. Warner previously served as editorial assistant of the journal. Dr. Warner will be joining the Political Science department as a tenure-track assistant professor in the fall. Her husband, Gary Warner, is retiring this semester from John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Ark., where he has been a professor of journalism. He will be moving to Jonesboro this summer.

Communication Studies faculty attend annual convention
Faculty and students in the Department of Communication Studies participated in the annual convention of the Southern States Communication Association held recently in Memphis. Dr. Marceline Hayes, Communication Studies, took part in a panel, “Enhancing Learning and Positive Communication in the Classroom.”  Dr. Hayes also presented a paper, “Integrating Theory into Existing Research.” Dr. Thomas Baglan, chair, Communication Studies, presented a paper, ”Academic Entitlement, Humor and Classroom Anxiety,” and also participated on a panel for the Association for Communication Administration. Libby James and Alesia Buie, graduate students, Communication Studies, were co-authors of the paper “Acadmic Entitlement, Humor, and Classroom Anxiety.” Undergraduate student Mike Gray, Communication Studies, presented a paper, “The relationship between gender identity and flirting style.”

Dr. Trauth presents papers at annual meeting
Dr. Stan Trauth, Zoology, and interim chair, Biological Sciences, recently presented one paper and co-presented three other papers with several of his students and colleagues at the 94^th Arkansas Academy of Science annual meeting held on April 9-10, on the campus of theUniversity of Arkansas at Little Rock. Dr. Trauth presented a study, “Ultrastructural observations of the secretory epithelium of the distal genital tract in the Flathead Snake, Tantilla gracilis.”  One finding in this study included the presence of both merocrine as well as apocrine secretions in the distal sperm duct cells in this snake. One of Dr. Trauth's current students, Sarah Webb, presented her MS thesis work, “The histology, histochemistry, and ultrastructure of Rathke’s glands in the Mississippi Mud Turtle, Kinosternon subrubrum hippocrepis,” a study detailing the microanatomy of Rathke’s glands, possibly the most primitive integumentary glands known to occur in vertebrates. A former student, Jacob Sawyer, presented “An urban population of Western Lesser Sirens, Siren intermedia nettingi,” a study of sirens of a smaller size and population density than non-urban populations of this salamander. Trauth, along with a colleague and former ASU student, Matthew Connior, presented on “Seasonal activity of the Ozark Highlands Leech, Macrobdella diplotertia, in north-central Arkansas.” This study showed that most leeches are more active in the spring months than at other times of the year.

Dr. Persell wins Academic Nurse of the Year award
Dr. Deborah Persell, Nursing, and coordinator of Regional Training Center for Disaster Life Support, was named “Academic Nurse of the Year” at the 2010 School of Nursing Alumni awards reception at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Dr. Persell, who earned her master's degree in nursing from UMKC in 1978, was honored April 22 by the UMKC School of Nursing Alumni Association and the School of Nursing at a ceremony in Kansas City, Mo. Dr. Persell spearheaded the efforts at Arkansas State for campus-wide inoculation against the H1N1 flu virus during the last year and worked with the Arkansas Department of Health to present two clinics which provided free seasonal and H1N1 shots to campus and community residents. She also provided periodic situation updates on H1N1 for ASU’s website. She has extensive experience working with Hurricane Katrina disaster medical relief, and she worked with the Medical Reserve Corps in Jonesboro during the January 2009 ice storm in northeast Arkansas. In 2008, Dr. Persell became the first graduate of a new Homeland Security Nursing program at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and was only one of three doctoral graduates from the program with the homeland security concentration. The innovative program is the only nursing curriculum in the nation which addresses disaster response training and was initiated to prepare nurse leaders, managers, and clinical nursing specialists to respond to disasters which involve mass casualties. Dr. Persell also has professional credentials as a pediatric nurse practitioner, and she was this year's recipient of the ASU Board of Trustees Faculty Achievement Award for Professional Service. For details, see the NewsPage release.

Lawrence honored as SBA veteran champion of year
Herb Lawrence, center director for the Arkansas State University Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBDTC) and Timothy Lee, of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Small Business and Technology Development Center, were awarded the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2010 Veteran Small Business Champions of the Year on Tuesday, April 27, at the twentieth annual Arkansas Small Business awards luncheon held at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock. The awards luncheon was held in conjunction with a daylong Arkansas Procurement Opportunities Conference that Lawrence also attended. In all, eleven awards were given to small business owners and individuals who support entrepreneurial efforts of Arkansans. Lawrence, a 20-year U.S. Army veteran, was recognized for his work promoting entrepreneurship and small business ownership with military veterans and National Guardsmen in Arkansas. Lawrence and Lee, under a one-year grant, have provided extensive services and training to state military veteran small business owners throughout 2009. Much of their work involved the Arkansas National Guard in pre-deployment and reintegration meetings for state military personnel who were small business owners preparing for or returning from active duty overseas tours. Lawrence and Lee attended numerous weekend meetings for service members, conducted six free webinars on small business topics, and met with over 3,000 military personnel. For details, see the NewsPage release. 

ASU Museum offers HiStory Time May 8
The ASU Museum will hold HiStory Time on Saturday, May 8, at 10:30 a.m. HiStory Time explores the history of this region through a history-based children's story, objects on exhibition, and a hands-on activity, likr songs, games, or crafts, that varies according to the story. Children ages 2-8 are invited, and older siblings are encouraged to tag along for HiStory Time or to enjoy other exhibitions in the museum. For more information visit the ASU Museum online, or call ext. 2074. This event is free and open to the public.


Back to the top