ASPIRATIONSI S S U E 1

"The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today."H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

V O L 2H O N O R S C O L L E G E N E W S L E T T E R

S P R I N G 2 0 1 6

Inside this issue:

Student Highlight:Harrison Sharitt

Study Abroad:Bahamas

Honors Seminar:We Solve It!

Georgia CollegiateHonors Council

Honoris Causa

As the Spring 2016 semester winds down,things are still in full swing in Honors College. Scholarship Interview Days, Conferences, andResearch, oh my! Students are taking classes,volunteering as much as they can, andpreparing for summer study abroad andinternship experiences ­ on top of takingfinals! Many seniors are facing hard decisionsafter receiving multiple offers from graduateschools. The Honors College's student group,Honoris Causa recently held officer electionsand is gearing up end of the year activities,while beginning to plan for the fall semester.Honors staff members are planningorientations and getting ready for all thewonderful incoming Honors freshman in thefall. So much is going on, with very little time!But that's why Honors students are sosuccessful ­ they often thrive under thepressure that comes with the end of the schoolyear!

Quick Update

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pg 7House of Heroes

Congratulates pg 8

CSU Honoris Causa

@HonorsCSU

Tower Day

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pg 7Cougarthon

Honors Students Katie Winkles, Amy Melton, Greg Pitts, and Amelia Maxfield are pictured on the front cover

Student Spotlight: Harrison Sharitt

STUDENT LIFE

Honors College graduating senior Harrison Sharitt is looking forward to next year after receivingmultiple offers. He was recently accepted to Master's programs in Mathematics & Statistics at theUniversity of Massachusetts-Amherst, Statistics at Florida State University, and Statistics & OperationalResearch at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. These graduate school admissions followed aninvitation to join the Peace Corps with a station in Namibia, Southern African. After some consideration,Harrison determined that he is ready to begin his graduate education at University of Massachusetts-Amherst where he has earned an assistantship. Harrison's success will not surprise many because he hasspent the last four years challenging himself academically and being very involved with Honoris Causa.During the 2014-15 school year Harrison studied at Oxford University, where he also took theopportunity to travel around Europe a little bit. This spring, his research was accepted for presentation atthe Mathematical Association of American Southeastern Conference, which was held at the end of Marchat the University of Alabama-Birmingham. The Honors College wishes Harrison luck in all his futureendeavors!

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CSU in the BahamasDuring Spring Break some Honors College students headed to the tropics to study ecology as part ofhonors biology courses. Andros Island is the largest island in the Bahamas but only has a population ofaround 7,500 people. The students who participated in this trip were able to discover more about thediversity and richness of the world around them. While they stayed at Forfar Field Station on the northeastern side of the island, they also visited places like Morgan’s Bluff, Red Bays, Androsia Batik Factory,Rat Cay (oceanic blue hole), Money Point, and the 3rd largest Barrier Reef in the world. One group ofstudents studied the diversity of fish populations in oceanic blue holes. This required them to snorkel toblue holes and write down what fish species they saw; they also had to measure the size of the blue holeand determine if that had any effect on the diversity.

 Brandi Fine and Lauren Johnson enjoy a meal onAndros Island

Harrison shows off his calculator at theColosseum in Rome

Georgia Collegiate Honors Council

ACADEMIC ENDEAVORS

The Georgia Collegiate Honors Council is an organization that promotes the advancement of honorseducation in institutions of higher learning throughout the state of Georgia. In February, Dr. Ticknor, theDean of the Honors College, and five Honors students attended this year’s two-day conference inAugusta, Georgia. At the conference, the students listened to research presentations and attended a postersession. Nicole Sikes and Samantha Chase both presented their research during their time there. NicoleSikes won 1st place in Natural Sciences presentations. Dr. Ticknor was elected the new Vice Presidentand Jocelyn Canedo was elected Student Vice President. Columbus State University is hosting GCHCnext year for the 34th Annual Meeting. We asked Nicole Sikes about some advice she had for studentswho were too scared to present their research, in which she responded, "They should be scared. It is scary.But the more you do it, the more comfortable you will become with it."

Jocelyn Canedo, Lauren Rosenblatt, Samantha Chase,Darby High, Nicole Sikes, and Dr. Cindy Ticknor at the

GCHC conference in Augusta.4

QEP: We Solve It!CSU has recently started to implement a Quality Enhancement Plan, or QEP. This new program isdesigned to engage students in identifying real-world problems, designing solutions, and deliveringthose solutions in an appropriate way. Dr. Izumi, a Communication professor at CSU, is heading up thisproject and decided to design a Honors enrichment seminar based around our QEP. She challengedstudents to think about how to solve the recycling and sustainability problems on campus. Three teamsof students racked their brains for sufficient and creative solutions. On March 29th, the 3 teams wenthead to head in a competition to present their ideas to a panel of judges. The winning team received$2,500 to split for use towards textbooks. Columbia Renix, Katie Holbrook, Charley Weaver, andVictoria Hargrove comprised the winning team. They proposed reducing CSU paper consumption byutilizing tablets and technology that could reduce printing of musical scores, flyers, and exams.

Dr. Tidwell, Columbia Renix, Katie Holbrook, VictoriaHargrove, and Charley Weaver at the QEP presentation.

TOWER DAYTower Day is an annual event hosted by the Honors College at ColumbusState University each year that gives students a chance to present theirundergraduate research, scholarly activities, and creative endeavors. Thisyear, Tower Day was held Tuesday, April 12th, and 160 students from acrosscampus presented through an art exhibit, poster sessions, and podiumpresentations. Also featured this year was a 3D printing demonstration ofCSU's Whitley Clock Tower. Plenary talks were given by CSU and HonorsAlumni Jarred Wiehe and Dr. Mariko Izumi, CSU's Quality EnhancementPlan Director. Throughout the day, an extensive committee of student andfaculty judges observed and questioned presenters in order to providefeedback and score the presentations. At the end of the day, the top fivepodium presentations and five posters won an outstanding presentation awardwith $50 gift cards to the CSU bookstore.

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Honors Students Recognized for Outstanding Presentations

Brandi Fine Skye Geeslin

Austin Caughey Jordan Walsh

Poster Poster

Poster Presentation

"Principles of Biology TutorialVideos"

"Completing the Puzzle:Exploring Possible Antecedents

to Rape Myth Acceptance"

"Rapid Orbit Refinement ofPotential Near-Earth Objects and

Recovery of Nearly LostAsteroids"

"Improvisation with Max/MSP:Exploring Sound Possibilitiesusing Live Audio Processing"

Courtney Fields presents her research at Tower Day

Recent Social Events

HONORIS CAUSA

Elections for the 2016-2017 Honoris Causa officers have come to a close, with Janell James beingreelected as President of the organization. The new and old officers will be taking a camping trip in Mayfor some team building activities and planning for the upcoming school year. The official passing of the

torch from one team to the next will happen on their camping trip.

Harrison Sharitt going for astrike on bowling night.

Honors College Students and Facultycelebrating the holidays at Dr. Ticknor's

house.

Elizabeth Biggs enjoying IceSkating at the Columbus Civic

center.

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2016- 2017 Elections

Main Campus VPRiverPark VP

Janell James

Alex JonesLauren RosenblattShaunquelle Sapp

Amelia BartonDarby High

Main Campus SecretaryRiverPark Secretary 

Treasurer

Alaina WhitmoreKaylyn CockrellAlex Medina

Social Events CoordinatorSocial Media Coordinator

SGA Representative

President

House of Heroes

PHILANTHROPY & VOLUNTEERING

Founded in January 2000, the House of Heroes™ is a nonprofit organization serving our nation'smilitary and public safety veterans (and their spouses) who are disabled, living on a fixed income, orfacing other physical/financial challenges. Volunteers perform minor repairs and make improvements tothe homes of veterans and their spouses—at no cost to the veteran—through the generosity ofindividuals, civic organizations, and corporations (houseofheroes.org). In early March, the Honors

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CougarthonApril 1, 2016 was a fun and philanthropicFriday! Organizations and individuals campus-widecame together for the 3rd annual Cougarthon event,hosted by the CSU Office of Community Outreach.Teams come together and pay $25 per team memberto join in the lock-in. All teams are encouraged toraise $100 per team member. The money raised atthis event was donated to the Children's MiracleNetwork at Columbus Regional Hospital. Led byJ'Lynne Jordand and Alishba Arshad, honors

Valencia Coleman, Taylor Eide, President Markwood,Rebekah Cherry, Alishba Arshad, Alaina Whitmore,J'Lynne Jordan, and Jane Mader taking a break from

all the dancing and fun at Cougarthon. 

College once again joined forces with the House ofHeroes and Headquarter Nissan in a self-organizedday of service. Katie Holbrook coordinated twodozen volunteers who lent their time and efforttowards helping SFC Laurent DeBrossard, Jr. Effortsincluded throwing away old furniture to rebuilding adeck rail. Dr. Ticknor stated to a local news station,"We want to makes sure that [honors students] giveback to the community, and also be leaders in servingthe community once they graduate from theuniversity." It was an honor to help a family who hasserved our community and our country. HonorsCollege students have partnered with HoH more thanonce this school year. In August during the campuswide Day of Service, the Honors College wasassigned to help the organization paint a deck and dosome other yard work. Honors College students enjoyhelping out in and giving back to their localcommunity.

students created a team of enthusiastic andmotivated super heroes. "Super Causa" became thetheme and name for the Honors College team.They got together days before the event to createmasks and capes to wear to the event. Money wasraised, and lives were saved.

Honors College4225 University Avenue Columbus, Georgia 31907

Phone: 706-507-8776Fax: 706-507-8775

Email: honors@columbusstate.edu

CongratulatesJoel Roop-Eckart Katie Winkles

Michael Rohly Manuel Parrachavez

Amber Holmes

Acceptance to the GeoSciencePhD Program at Penn. State

Acceptance to the ColoradoState and UGA Veterinary

Medicine Programs

Acceptance to the NIH Step-UpSummer Internship Program at

Harvard

Acceptance for a Software AGInternship in Germany &awarded the Aflac Honors

Scholarship

Awarded theAflac Honors Scholarship

Acceptance to the Doctorate ofPhysical Therapy program at

Brenau University

Just a few highlights

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Danielle Royal

Jacob Dirkman

Darby High

Skye Geeslin

2nd Place for Tri Beta ResearchPresentation at the Association of

Southeastern BiologistsConference

Awarded the Paul and MiriamWitt Education Scholarship

from the College of Education

Acceptance to the University ofWest Florida's Master's inIndustrial Organization &placing 2nd at the Georgia

Undergraduate in PsychologyConference & a best posterpresentation at Tower Day

Kameron GriffinResearch published in the

Journal of Chemical Education

Scholastic Honors Convocation Honors College Award Recipients Joel Roop-Eckart: Academic Recognition Award & PhiKappa Phi Senior AwardLyndsay Richardson: Interdisciplinary Studies AwardMeredith Dayoub: Scholarly Activities in Fine &Performing Arts AwardCurtis Davis: Scholarly Activities in Humanities AwardCatherine North: Scholarly Activities in ProfessionalStudies AwardJacob Dirkman: Scholarly Activities in Science Award &Cellular & Molecular Biology AwardShelby Rolling:  Scholarly Activities in Social ScienceAward & Health Science AwardKarolyn Turner: Art History Award

Amy Melton: Music-Presser Scholar AwardLouisa Tovar-Forero: Mario Mion Scholarship AwardKatie Winkles: Ecological & Evolutionary Biology AwardMichael Rohly: George Stanton Biology Award &Mathematics AwardNakia Guy: Outstanding Freshman Chemistry MajorAwardNicole Sikes: Excellence in Chemistry Research AwardKameron Griffin: Outstanding Chemistry Major AwardMark Bair: Geology AwardKayla Parsons: Engineering AwardAustin Caughey: Astronomy Award