SPRINGFIELD - Missouri State University recently awarded scholarships to incoming students for the 2012-13 academic year. These students were selected from those who applied based on their ACT (American College Test) scores, GPA, standing in graduating class and leadership shown in community and school activities.
The following Stoddard County students were awarded and have accepted university-funded, merit-based scholarships as of June 1.
Dexter
- Dalton Riley Putnam - Provost Scholarship
- Erika Diane Mouser - Provost Scholarship
- Lauren Michelle Ward - Board of Governors Scholarship
- Tyler G Miller - Provost Scholarship
- Jamie R Manuel - Board of Governors Scholarship
Richland
- Mallory A Hillis - Board of Governors Scholarship
The group will leave next Tuesday, June 26th, traveling to Greensboro, North Carolina. Richland has over twenty-three students that will compete at the National Beta Convention.
Richland Beta Members have been working hard to raise the funds necessary to travel and attend the convention.
"We had a BBQ dinner before our talent show," noted Beta Club sponsor, Stephanie Swindell Monroe. "The community members, Pat Crane, local businesses, the Richland administration and school board have all come through for our group."
We have done several fund raisers to make this trip possible for our group. The car wash this past weekend was a great success for the group. They have also sold Little Ceasers Pizza throughout the year.
Many of the area businesses that assisted in the fundraising efforts were Po Boyz, Shindigs Catering, On the Go Convenience Store, Country Mart, Town & Country and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Additional support came from many staff members at Richland Schools; Mrs. Norma Corlew, Janet Bingham, Judy Ackman, and Susan Waters. "My kids have worked hard to get this wonderful opportunity," Stephanie shared. "As you can tell, they are fun and enthusiastic."
Jessi Shidler won Beta State Secretary at the Branson contest as her campaign skit won first place.
Richland also has a strong Junior Beta Group. These students will travel to Greensboro this Friday. Junior Beta Members include 8th Graders Jamie Smith, Jerry Craft and Garet Phillips. Smith won first in the Special Talent division, while Craft won second in the Spelling category and Phillips won second place in the Pencil Drawing contest.
"These students make my job a pleasure," added Monroe. "And I love Beta!"
Mrs. Monroe has been a Beta Sponsor at Richland for the past seven years. She was a Beta member and very active in Beta club as a high school student.
She noted that the values taught to students through these service projects inspires students to become greater adults.
Beta Mission Statement: To promote the ideals of academic achievement, character, service and leadership among elementary and secondary school students.
"My students inspire me and make me a better person." Monroe noted in closing. "I am very proud of each one."
SPRINGFIELD - Each semester, students at Missouri State University who attain academic excellence are named to the dean’s list.
For undergraduate students, criteria include enrollment in at least 12 credit hours during the spring semester and at least a 3.50 grade point average (on a 4.00 scale).
Students from Stoddard County earning Dean’s Lists honors for the Spring 2012 semester, as reported by the office of University Communications at Missouri State University include:
Dexter
- Steven G Harrellson
- Ethan D Jackson
- Nathan D Watkins
- Eric J Windham
Puxico
- Natalie K Jackson
- Lindsey J Martin
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - On a beautiful sunny morning, 939 undergraduates and 1,545 graduate students received their Massachusetts Institute of Technology diplomas Friday, June 8, after hearing an address by Sal Khan ’98, MEng ’98, founder of the online Khan Academy, that elicited gales of laughter while also providing thought-provoking advice.
Receiving his degree in electrical engineering at the MIT commencement was Dexter native Andy Goessling.
MIT President Susan Hockfield told the graduates that she has more in common with this year’s class than with previous ones: She too, she said, will be moving on after nearly eight years as the Institute’s leader. Hockfield, who will be succeeded as president by Provost L. Rafael Reif on July 2, said, “All of us likely look forward to commencing our next chapter with a sense of breathless excitement.”
Among the lessons Hockfield said she has learned at the Institute: “Every day, MIT faculty, students, postdocs, staff and alumni take a sharp look at the way things are — and find a way to make them better.” One sterling example of that, she said, is Khan, who has created “a brand-new catalyst for transforming how, when and how well everyone learns everywhere, online.”
In introducing Khan, John Reed ’61, SM ’65, chairman of the MIT Corporation, pointed out that this was not Khan’s first appearance before Killian Court: As president of his senior class, Khan spoke at Commencement in 1998, saying then that “it is no exaggeration to say that we will change the world.”
Reed added: “Having checked this assignment off his to-do list, he joins us here today.”
Khan said that his experience at MIT has “played a much deeper role than many of you might appreciate” in his own life. He was proud of his alma mater, he said, when hearing of its plans a decade ago to launch MIT OpenCourseWare, making course materials available to anyone in the world for free — and more recently with the announcement of edX, a partnership with Harvard University that will carry that concept of free access to top-level higher education even further. While other institutions were looking for ways to profit from, or defend against, online education, MIT opted for free and open access — “to put principle over profit,” as Khan put it.
That model, he said, “in no small way inspired what has now become the Khan Academy,” which offers thousands of free educational videos aimed at elementary and high school students.
Khan compared MIT to the fictional Hogwarts school in the bestselling Harry Potter series. “The ideas and the research and the science that percolates behind these walls, that’s the closest thing to magic in the real world,” he said. “Frankly, to people outside this campus, it looks like magic.”
Khan described the MIT faculty as “the leading wizards of our time, the Dumbledores and McGonagalls,” he said, referring to Harry Potter’s fictional teachers of wizardry.
Coming back to MIT, Khan said, felt like returning to a close family. MIT students all share “that same core desire to understand the universe … to push humanity forward,” he said. Faced with the demands of a curriculum that pushes them to their limits, he said, “you cry together, you laugh together, you procrastinate together, you have sleepless nights together,” resulting in “the deepest possible bonds” — which Khan compared to those of soldiers who have ventured through combat together.
Khan urged the graduates, as they face life, to try to be “as incredibly, and maybe delusionally, positive as possible,” and to force themselves to smile “with every atom of your body,” even in difficult times.
Before they set out into the world, Khan asked the Class of 2012 to carry out a “thought experiment.” He urged them to imagine themselves 50 years from now, reflecting back on their lives, and thinking about the things they might have wished to do differently: spending more time with family members, or expressing their love more openly to those they care about.
But then imagine, Khan said, that a genie appears and gives them the chance to travel back those 50 years, and find themselves back again at Commencement — with a second chance to realize that “I can laugh more, I can sing more, I can dance more, I can be more of a source of positivity for the people around me, and empower more people.”
As they embark on this imagined “second chance,” Khan said, he was “just in awe of the potential that’s here.” Addressing the graduates as “the wizards of tomorrow,” he said, “I’m just excited to see what you’re going to do with your second pass.”
Hockfield, in her charge to the students, thanked the Class of 2012 for its class gift of $20,000, which will be used to fund special projects and trips by student clubs and organizations. More than 80 percent of the class contributed, she said, noting that this was, “by an enormously wide margin, the highest participation in the history of MIT.”
“I know you will leave here with the deep imprint of this community’s profound commitment to service,” Hockfield said. “Now is the moment for us to send you forth … to put MIT’s spirit and principles to work around the globe.”
Video of Interest
COLUMBIA - The University of Missouri – Columbia has released its Dean’s List for the Spring 2012 semester. Each school and college at MU reports its students who have earned Dean’s List honors to the Office of Admissions , and the list is then distributed by the MU News Bureau.
Students from Stoddard County reported as earning Dean’s List honors, their year, and school or college include:
Bernie: Bailey Nicole Martin, Sophomore, Agriculture-Food & Natural Resources
Dexter:
- Garrett Colin McKuin, Senior, Business
- Kelci Paige Nelson, Junior, Education
- Leigh Alexandra Yorke, Junior, Arts & Science
- Chad David Cook, Junior, Agriculture-Food & Natural Resources
