2002-2003 Student Achievements
Honors student Christopher Hall was selected as one of two students to represent UAA at the 54th annual Student Conference on United States Affairs (SCUSA) in November 2002. The conference is held at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. This year, the conference topic will be “U.S. Foreign Policy Post 9/11: Challenges, Concerns and Opportunities in a Changed World.”
Jennifer Davis, University Honors Junior, is spending her fall 2002 semester with Walt Disney World College Program in Orlando, Florida. While learning from executives at Walt Disney World Resort, Jennifer will take Disney Organizational Leadership course, in which she will examine and apply the classical models of leadership in preparation of their application in today's corporate environment.
Honors Freshman Laura Gardner was selected as a 2002-2003 Honors Fellow of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. On August 13-18, 2002, she joined other outstanding undergraduates at a seminar in Oxford, England, "Progress and Revolution: Utopian Ideology, Terror, and the Human Cost." During the 2002-2003 academic year she has been paired with a faculty mentor who provides intellectual guidance, and she will attend a Career Development Seminar to help prepare her for future positions of leadership. She is the second UAA student to participate in this program.
Honors Freshman Lindsay Eberhardt was selected to participate in the course in "Sound Money and Free Markets" at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, NY, June 16-21, 2002. Her expenses were paid by a grant from the Richard Seth Staley Educational Foundation in Washington State. The seminar brought together outstanding undergraduates to examine the economic foundations of free government.
In May 2002, Mandy Yan, a UAA Honors junior and a member of the University Honors Advisory Board, was selected as one of the 100 "leading undergraduate scholars whose character, achievements, and community involvement are of the highest caliber" in the Search for Excellence Undergraduate Merit Award Program. Mandy is a member of the University Honors Student Advisory Board and a very active member in the program.
Rebekah Miller, one of the 2002 UAA Honors graduates and a Graduate Fellowship nominee, has been awarded a Phi Kappa Phi Award of Excellence ($1,500) for graduate study during the 2002-2003 academic year, a certificate of recognition, and Active-for-Life membership.
Upon the review of the Commencement Speaker Committee, UAA Chancellor E. Lee Gorsuch selected University Honors senior Rebekah Miller to be the Commencement Speaker for the 2002 Commencement Ceremony.
In April 2002, Michael Blanton, a UA Scholar and second-year Honors student, was the winner of the James Madison Cup, an annual UAA Political Science contest on the knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.
Five UAA Honors students (E.J. David, Jennifer Davis, Nick McDermott, Stefanie Winters, and Mandy Yan) worked as research assistants with UAA Psychology and Honors professor Dr. Claudia Lampman and will be published this year in Sexuality & Culture, a quarterly professional journal published by Rutgers University. All students were from an experimental section of HNRS 292: Modern American Culture. Read the Anchorage Daily News article about their research experience at http://www.adn.com/front/story/868921p-954639c.html
Karina Smith, a University Honors senior and a member of the Seawolf Speech and Debate Team, got 3rd place for Informative Speaking and 4th place for Persuasive Speaking at the Betsy Karl Memorial Speech and Debate Tournament, held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, March 8-9, 2002. Karina has been the Resident Advisor of the University Honors Program for the past two years.
E.J. David, one of the 2002 UAA Honors graduates, was offered admission into the Clinical/Community Division of the Psychology Ph.D. program of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the top five psychology Ph.D. programs in the nation according to US News Rankings. Only 15 out of 200 candidates were offered admission. E.J. was also offered a guaranteed full financial aid for six academic years. The offer averages to about $27,000 per nine months. About $14,000 covers tuition, fees, and other school expenses, while the remaining $13,000 is paid as a stipend. Overall, E.J.'s offer totals to about $162,000.
Rebekah Miller and E.J. David received UAA Undergraduate Research Awards to work on their research projects during 2002-2003 academic year. Click on the following links to read the abstracts of their proposals:
• Rebekah L. Miller, (BS, Biological Sciences) "Benefits of Writing About Traumatic Experiences for Individuals with Chronic Illness"
• Eric J.R. David (BA, Psychology) "Determining Potential Sources of Psychological Distress Among Highly Acculturated and Lesser Acculturated Filipino-American Adolescents: An Investigation of Possible Factors within the Family and Outside the Family"
