2019 SPRING CONVOCATION INFORMATION
This year, the College of Arts and Sciences will celebrate the achievements of our graduating students on Saturday, May 11, at the Lloyd Noble Center. We will have two ceremonies, which will begin at 5 p.m. with the Graduate College Convocation for Arts and Sciences masters students. The College of Arts and Sciences Convocation for students receiving their undergraduate degrees will begin at 8 p.m. For more information
click here.
For live streaming of the Graduate College Convocation for Arts and Sciences masters students
click here
.
For live streaming of the College of Arts and Sciences Convocation for students receiving their undergraduate degrees
click here
.
Want to receive reminders and updates leading up to graduation weekend? Sign up to receive text alerts! Text "OUGrad19" to 67283 to opt-in. We will send reminders on graduation to-do items as well as weather-related alerts.
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COLLEGE CELEBRATES AWARD WINNERS
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FACULTY HONORED AT 2019 TRIBUTE
It was an outstanding year for the College of Arts and Sciences at the
2019 Faculty Tribute
.
OU celebrated the great achievements of its talented faculty through a variety of awards and recognitions. The Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost c
oordinated awards with other administrative offices and the event was hosted by the OU Board of Regents and President James L. Gallogly. This year, the college had a combined 16 faculty members win awards, including seven new Presidential Professorships. George Lynn Cross Research Professorship honoree
Helen Zgurskaya
, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is pictured with President Gallogly and Kyle Harper (Senior Vice President and Provost). For photos and a complete list of faculty award recipients from the college
click here.
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ANNUAL RECEPTION HELD TO THANK STAFF
The college honored all of its staff members at its annual Staff Reception.
We congratulate our three Dean’s Staff Award winners and the Dean's Outstanding Advising Award recipient.
The purpose of the staff awards is to recognize staff members and advisers in the departments and programs within the college for their outstanding job performance. The staff award winners for 2019 are
Katie Bayliss
(Department of Native American Studies),
Susy Jorgenson
(Department of Women's and Gender Studies) and
Michael Keeter
(Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology).
Susan Blossom
(Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work) was named the Dean's Outstanding Advising Award winner. Each award recipient will receive $500 and have their name inscribed on a plaque in the Hobson Academic Services office.
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STAFF SENATE AWARDS RECOGNIZE TWO FROM ARTS AND SCIENCES
Each year, the University of Oklahoma's Staff Senate recognizes a select number of exceptional staff who demonstrate a commitment to the pursuit of excellence and a level of performance that exceeds the values and standards of the university. Winners were honored at the
56th annual Staff Senate Awards Ceremony
in April. Two members of the college were chosen this year,
Cyndy Adams
(Classics) won the Katie Pursley Superior Performance Award and
Lisa Henry
(Political Communication Center) was selected for the Distinguished Performance Award. In addition
,
retiring staff members and those celebrating anniversaries were recognized.
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ARTS AND SCIENCES STUDENTS SELECTED FOR CAMPUS AWARDS
Congratulations to
Noah Collins,
who was presented the
2019 Carl Albert Award
, awarded each year to the outstanding senior in the college. Collins was honored at a ceremony attended by members of the Albert family in the Heritage Room of Oklahoma Memorial Union. The Carl Albert Award, the most prestigious honor given to a student by the college, is based on academics, moral force of character and promise of future service to the state and nation.
Collins also was among numerous students from the College of Arts and Sciences who were honored by the university at the
Spring 2019 Campus Awards Program
. The college congratulates all students who were recognized at the event.
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COLLEGE GRADUATE ASSISTANTS HONORED BY PROVOST
Congratulations to all College of Arts and Sciences graduate assistants who were recently honored with the Provost's Certificate of Distinction in Teaching. The 2018 fall semester recipients of the award represent the top 10 percent of all graduate assistants across campus as determined by student evaluations. The following graduate assistants in the college earned the distinction:
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Jordan Van Nest (Astronomy)
Mary Moon (Biology)
Miranda Vesy (Biology)
Tejaswi Bavineni (Chemistry)
Xingxiu Chen (Chemistry)
Matthew Finneran (Chemistry)
Eric Gardner (Chemistry)
Jennifer Londono Salazar
(Chemistry)
Sydney Newsom
(Chemistry)
Heidi Noneman
(Chemistry)
Daniel Sheffield
(Chemistry)
Jaspreet Singh
(Chemistry)
Kegan Sunderland
(Chemistry)
Tianna Cobb (Communication)
Morgan Timmons
(Communication)
Brittney Wallace
(Communication)
Katy Krieger (English)
Mandi McRay
(English)
Jerell DeCaille (Health and Exercise Science)
Ashley Dioguardi
(Health and Exercise Science)
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Ashley Fox (Health and Exercise Science)
Danielle McGill (Health and Exercise Science)
Aspen Ranz (Health and Exercise Science)
Travis Richardson (Health and Exercise Science)
Ryan Brumbelow (History)
Courtney Buchkoski (History)
Bobby Griffith (History)
Fahed Mokdad Reyes (Mathematics)
Rosa Moon Escamilla (Microbiology)
Emily Junkins (Microbiology)
Brian Bill (Microbiology)
Douglas Bryant (Political Science)
Dylan Billings (Political Science)
Daniel Tinney (Philosophy)
Dibyashree Sengupta (Physics)
Andrew Church (Physics)
Jordan Sligh (Physics)
Brent LaRue (Physics)
Jessica Becerra (Psychology)
Esther Andres Montecatini (Spanish)
Arthur Dixon (Spanish)
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In addition,
Stephen Foste
r (Psychology) was awarded the Provost's Graduate Teaching Assistant Award in the Social Sciences, Education, and the Professions.
This university-level award is given out only three times a year in three different academic areas.
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OKLAHOMA BIOLOGICAL STATION - THINKING OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
Catching birds, fish, bugs and spiders while catching a passion for nature. The University of Oklahoma Biological Station, just a two-hour drive from Norman, has inspired students and faculty to think outside the classroom since 1949. Now, it’s opening its doors to more than just biology enthusiasts. Recently,
Inside OU
featured the station
and its possibilities.
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HANNAH DAY NAMED GOLDWATER SCHOLAR
Hannah Day was one of three OU students
named 2019 Goldwater Scholars
.
Day is a National Merit Scholar majoring in both physics and math. She intends to earn a doctorate in theoretical physics and to study physics beyond the Standard Model (made up of ideas concerning quantum mechanics, relativity and Einstein’s gravity), especially as it relates to gravity.
The prestigious scholarships are awarded on the basis of potential and intent to pursue research careers in mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering. The one- and two-year scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.
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OU DEBATE TEAM WINS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
OU students Jazmine Pickens and Darius White
won the 2019 Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) National Tournament
that took place April 4-7 in Long Beach, California. Founded in 1971 as the Southwest Cross Examination Debate Association, CEDA is the primary national association promoting policy topic intercollegiate academic debate. Pickens (majoring in political science) and White (majoring in communications) beat out 102 teams from across the country.
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SAMUEL DUWE PUBLISHES BOOK ON PUEBLO MOVEMENT
Assistant professor of anthropology
Samuel Duwe’s
co-edited volume (with Robert Preucel)
The Continuous Path: Pueblo Movement and the Archaeology of Becoming
is now available. The book is the outcome of an award-winning session at the 2017 Society for American Archaeology meeting and a follow-up invitation for the authors to host a week-long seminar at the Amerind Foundation in Dragoon, Arizona. The project brought together archaeologists, anthropologists and Native American scholars and community members. The result is a collaborative discussion of Pueblo Indian history that challenges archaeologists to privilege Indigenous philosophy in the interpretation of anthropological data.
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KENNETH NICHOLAS NAMED OKLAHOMA CHEMIST AWARDEE
Kenneth M. Nicholas
, George Lynn Cross Professor Emeritus of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been selected as the
2019 recipient of the Oklahoma Chemist Award
, given by the Oklahoma Section of the American Chemical Society, for his outstanding contributions to the discovery, fundamental understanding and applications of chemical reactions promoted by transition metal compounds. Nicholas is most well-known for the invention and development of a chemical reaction (often referred to as the Nicholas reaction) that converts alkynes (triply bonded hydrocarbons) to diverse and useful products and is facilitated by cobalt-association. Over his career, Nicholas' research team has focused on basic and applied studies of the chemical reactions of metal-coordinated organic species, especially those derived from hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide and renewable chemical resources, such as carbohydrates.
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ADAM HINES SELECTED AS HUGHES-GOSSETT AWARD WINNER
Adam Hines
, a senior majoring in letters and constitutional studies who is a fellow for the OU
Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage, received the Hughes-Gossett Student Award from the Journal of Supreme Court History for his article
“Ralph Waldo Emerson & Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr: The Subtle Rapture of Postponed Power.” Hines has been invited to the Supreme Court Historical Society's black-tie gala where he will receive the award in June.
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PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS WIN AWARDS AT CONFERENCE
Several research assistants from the Mumford Research Group attended the Great Plains Students' Psychology Convention that was hosted by Missouri State University this year. TJ Keys and Nick Smith were awarded first place in their division for their research proposal presentation and Christine Thomas was awarded first place in her division for her research proposal poster.
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Julie Ward
,
assistant professor in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, received a Norman Arts Council Sudden Opportunity Support Grant for $2,000 and an Oklahoma Humanities Opportunity Grant for $1,000, in support of a series of events held April 17-19. The events included a presentation of her new book
A Shared Truth: The Theater of Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol
(U of Pittsburgh P, 2019) and two performances by Mexican theater company Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol (Lizards Lounging in the Sun):
Santiago Amoukalli
and
Asalto al agua transparente
(
Assault on Clear Water
) at the Cross Black Box Theater on OU’s campus, which included a panel discussion with Ward, Sarah Hines (History) and Kae Koger (Drama) and a Q&A with the company.
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Jill Hicks-Keeton
,
assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, has been selected for the OU Arts and Humanities Faculty Fellowship Program. Hicks-Keeton will utilize the award to support the completion of her book project under contract with Cambridge University Press. Titled
Who Owns the Bible?
the book analyzes the recently opened Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. The
purpose of the AHFF program is to support dynamic and innovative research and creative activity projects proposed by regular faculty in the arts, fine arts, and humanities by providing them the opportunity to focus on a scholarly and/or creative activity that significantly transforms the faculty member’s research program and makes notable contributions to the field.
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The Department of Mathematics successfully hosted the
2019 Spring Redbud Topology Conference
on campus April 26-28. Supported by the NSF, the regional conference in topology and related areas included participants from OU, the University of Arkansas, Oklahoma State University and others.
In addition, OU and OSU recently co-hosted the 22nd Annual Conference on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, which took place in Oklahoma City February 28 - March 2.
Milos Savic
and
Deborah Moore-Russo
served on the local organizing committee, and numerous OU faculty and students helped with this event that involved 329 participants.
Mathematics graduate student
Patrick Dynes
was recently named a 2019 recipient of an NSF Graduate Fellowship. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. Dynes field of study is mathematical sciences, algebra, number theory and combinatorics.
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Lara Mayeux
, associate professor of social and developmental psychology, has received a grant award from NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory. Mayeux (pictured on right), with collaborator Daphne LaDue (OU Center for the Advanced Prediction of Storms, left) will team up with meteorologist and structural/forensic engineer Tim Marshall (center) to collect data after the March 3 tornado outbreak in Lee County, Alabama. Mayeux and LaDue are interviewing survivors to learn more about tornado-specific decision making, coping and resilience.
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DAVID BARD - OU HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER
$23,390 - STATE OF OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES AND A MATCHING FUND FROM A PRIVATE FOUNDATION
EVALUATION OF OK'S CPS CHILD WELFARE NURSING PROGRAM
Child welfare systems across the country are looking for innovative strategies to improve Child Protective Services’ decision-making to support the safety and well-being of children and families, ideally at the beginning of the point-of-contact with the family. The Family First Prevention Services Act requires states to create a plan and fully document the steps taken to track and prevent child maltreatment deaths in their state. In 2015, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services started the Child Welfare Nursing program to employ and train Registered Nurses to help CPS investigations involving medical conditions as a reason for a referral. The Oklahoma Department of Human Services and the University of Oklahoma (Department of Sociology, Health Sciences Center and the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work) have come together to evaluate this innovative program using administrative data. The project team will assess the impact of the Child Welfare Nursing Program on family stability and use of foster care, re-reports of child maltreatment and child fatalities. All of these outcomes will be examined in the context of ensuring the safety and well-being of the child.
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$25,000 - HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER
STEPHENSON CANCER CENTER TEAM GRANT
This project aims to seek a tumor-homing molecule. The tumor-homing molecule will guide the anticancer drugs to the tumors to achieve targeted cancer therapy.
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DAVID MCLEOD
- DIRECTOR OF THE KNEE CENTER FOR STRONG FAMILIES - ASSISTANT PROFESSOR ANNE AND HENRY ZARROW SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK
$91,194 - STATE OF OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
OKLAHOMA FEMALE DIVERSION PROGRAM: INCORPORATING SWIFT, CERTAIN, AND FAIR SANCTIONS FOR SUPERVISION EFFECTIVENESS
This is a sub-contract related to the second United States Department of Justice grant David McLeod has assisted OK-DOC in attaining in the past five years. This collaboration has brought over $1.1 million to the state, thus far, to address Oklahoma’s pressing need for criminal justice reform. Oklahoma incarcerates more women, per capita, than any other jurisdiction in the developed world. For example, Oklahoma incarcerates women at a rate more than 50 times higher than that of Afghanistan. In this project, his work will help to develop and assess the impact of rehabilitative programming to help criminal justice involved women avoid prison, contribute to society, and improve quality of life for them and their children.
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$82,683 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
THE ROLE OF HABITAT TRANSITIONS IN PARALLEL MARINE FISH RADIATIONS
This project aims to study the ecological factors that have shaped the evolutionary history of three major marine fish groups that split along similar ecological gradients at deep time scales (>50 million years), with extreme forms, including bottom dwellers, such as flounders, and open ocean swimmers, such as tunas and billfish. Researchers plan to generate genome-scale data for hundreds of species and apply an integrative framework that combines genealogical histories, the fossil record, trait and ecological data, and comparative methodologies to understand the origin and evolution of major lineages and disparate body plans in these groups.
$273,043 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
FISHLIFE: GENEALOGY AND TRAITS OF LIVING AND FOSSIL VERTEBRATES THAT NEVER LEFT THE WATER
Completing the Tree of Life is a grand challenge in science, on the same intellectual scale as investigating the nature of matter or the origin of the universe; it is fundamental to understanding our world. As we make progress with this challenge, biology is being transformed by the integration of complete phylogenetic trees with rich pools of data that empower us to address large-scale questions about life. By combining genomic, paleontological, anatomical, functional, ecological and comparative approaches, this collaborative project aims to elucidate the evolutionary history of all fish species and their connection to terrestrial vertebrates. The research team blends strengths in collection-based research for all groups of fishes, molecular and morphological phylogenetics, bioinformatics and comparative analyses to synthesize massive data sets to resolve the Fish Tree of Life and perform evolutionary analyses of key traits.
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$126,981 - NASA HEADQUARTERS
XRP18 STEP 2 PLANETARY SYSTEMS AS THE BOTTOM LEVELS OF HIERARCHIES
This research is performing computer simulations to study how young planets behave when they reside within binary star systems. These are systems in which two stars orbit one another, unlike our Sun, which is an isolated star. In addition, the research will also use computer simulations to study how planets form and have evolved within Alpha Centauri, a triple star system that is the Sun's nearest stellar neighbor. Roughly half of all stars possess one or more stellar companions. This work will help us understand how the presence of one or more companions can affect the evolution of planets.
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$11,000 - STATE OF OKLAHOMA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION DEPARTMENT
POPULATION MONITORING OF BLACK-CAPPED VIREOS IN BLAINE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA
At the northernmost outpost of the Black-capped Vireo’s breeding range Jeremy Ross is continuing a long-term monitoring project for the species. His lab is documenting the prevalence and habitat use of this species following its successful recovery under the Endangered Species Act, including how Oklahoma’s unique geology in the Gypsum Hills region has helped this species persist. The shifting slopes of the Salt Creek Canyon (pictured) appear to be key for maintaining critical shrub-savanna habitats for these songbirds.
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DEADLINES AND FEATURED EVENTS
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May 10
The University of Oklahoma Commencement will be held at 7 p.m. in The Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, 180 West Brooks St. For more information about the university's Commencement, visit the Commencement website by
clicking here
.
May 11
This year, the College of Arts and Sciences will celebrate the achievements of our graduating students on Saturday, May 11, at the Lloyd Noble Center. We will have two ceremonies, which will begin at 5 p.m. with the Graduate College Convocation for Arts and Sciences master’s students. The College of Arts and Sciences Convocation for students receiving their undergraduate degrees will begin at 8 p.m. For more information
click here.
May 15-16
The 2019 Haruv USA International Conference will be held at the at OU-Tulsa Learning Center (4502 E 41st St., Tulsa). This will be the second international conference on child maltreatment.
Click here for registration information.
July 15
Sabbatical leave applications for spring 2020 or spring 2020 and fall 2020 (two-semester sabbatical) are due to the Dean’s office.
August 19
Fall 2019 classes begin.
September 10
Be a part of something BIG when Sooners around the world join together in September for the third annual OU Giving Day. Additional information about this event will be announced in the future.
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If you have information or announcements for
News & Updates
, please submit to the college
communication office
.
News & Updates
is published every month.
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