At UCO,  undergraduate students may win campus funding for their research, creative and scholarly projects. The College of Education and Professional Studies students submitted 28 proposals, the highest number of student submissions of any college; Arts, Media and Design (CAMD) submitted 7; Business Administration (CBA) submitted 5; Liberal Arts (LA) submitted 10, and Mathematics & Science (CMS) submitted 22. These students wrote proposals for original research to be conducted with a faculty mentor.

At OSU, several programs are making a big difference in how our students experience undergraduate study.  Wentz Research Projects make substantial awards available every year for 50 students who submit high quality proposals for work to be done with a faculty mentor.  OSU is now offering winners of Wentz awards an extra (third) semester of financial support, hoping that more time will allow them to publish results and take part in institutes and internships.

Specialized areas are represented with other programs like the Niblack scholarships, which encourage a year of study with the supervision of not only faculty but graduate students, fall, spring, and summer.
 
Knowing that a quick start is the key not only to good retention but also prestigious awards, graduate school admission, and jobs farther down the line, OSU also has refined a popular Freshman Research Program. Administered centrally (see "Scholar Development and Recognition" on the OSU web-site) and managed jointly with undergraduate colleges, each of which receives scholarship funds for their best new students, the program attracts high quality students and ensures outstanding retention rates.  During the fall semester, the college presents an orientation to research for participants and helps them identify mentors for an introductory research project, conducted in the spring.  Various occasions to display their work are made available, and those who perform at a high level receive other incentives, such as travel to a professional conference of their choice to display their work.
 
The value of all this is clear to see, as the majority of the fifty OSU winners of major national and international awards in the last fifteen years have been recipients of Wentz funding, and the last four winners of Goldwater Scholarships have begun their careers at OSU in the Freshman Research Program.

Recently, 200 Oklahoma college students and faculty advisors and others attending the "Who Wants to Be an Entrepreneur" workshop, sponsored by Oklahoma EPSCoR. More than half plan to enter the 2010 Donald W. Reynolds Governor's Cup Business Plan competition. The competition, now in its sixth year, has launched scores of young Oklahoma entrepreneurs on the career quest to engage in entrepreneurial enterprises.
 
In recent months, i2E has taken the message of entrepreneurship to campuses at Rogers State in Claremore and Cameron University in Lawton, and at the offices of Rural Enterprises Inc. in Durant, where lively entrepreneurial communities are thriving.  Audiences included a mix of faculty, economic development professionals and entrepreneurs who are working to commercialize products in settings far outside Oklahoma's metropolitan areas.
 
Undaunted by the long odds they faced, they shared with us a strong belief in their ability to turn their passion into a commercial success. It was a refreshing attitude in a time when others across the nation have pulled their bait out of the water and gone home.
 
This is the entrepreneurial spirit that typifies our Oklahoma heritage. We continue to help spread it around.
 
Tom Walker is president and CEO of i2E, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that mentors many of the state's technology-based start-up companies. i2E receives state appropriations from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology.

Four environmental health science majors at East Central University have been selected to participate in federal externships through the U.S. Public Health Service's Commissioned Officer Student Training Extern Program (COSTEP). The Commissioned Corps is one of the seven uniformed services and is led by the surgeon general of the United States.

The students, shown in the picture, will start their assignments in May. They are Billy Porter, a junior from Ada, assigned to the IHS in Santa Fe, N.M.; Tyler Jackson, a junior from Lilburn, Ga., assigned to the Navajo Area IHS in Fort Defiance, Arizona.; Mistin Ray, a junior from Choctaw, assigned to the Indian Health Service (IHS) in Fairbanks, Alaska; and Paul Eaton, a junior from Yukon, assigned to the Oklahoma City Area IHS. They will be commissioned as ensigns during their three-month tours.

An externship is one of ECU's requirements for completing a degree in environmental health science. The selection process into the COSTEP program is highly competitive. Only students from accredited undergraduate programs in environmental health science like ECU's are eligible to participate. Dr. Patrick O. Bohan, ECU associate professor of environmental health science and a retired captain in the USPHS directs the program. ECU students learn about theory and practice in such areas as occupational health and safety, food protection, air and water quality, hazardous waste, toxicology, community health and epidemiology. The ECU Environmental Health Science Program has placed more graduates in the environmental health category of the Commissioned Corps than any other institution in the country. Congratulations ECU!

To learn more about the Environmental Health Sciences Program at ECU, contact Dr. Doug Weirick, Department Chair, at 580-559-5548.

 

Seven students from Oklahoma's regional universities have been named Brad Henry International Scholars and will spend the spring 2010 semester participating in an international study and internship program at Swansea University in Wales.

Echo Adcock, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Lindsey "Dare" Chronister, East Central University; Taylor Hildenbrand and Zachary Hurley, University of Central Oklahoma; Andrea Jones, University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, Brian Lunk, Rogers State University, and Andrea Morgan, Langston University, Langston, were chosen by their institutions for the international study program, which was established by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education in June 2008.

The State Regents provide a $10,000 stipend for students selected to participate in semester-long study or research programs affiliated with Swansea University. Academic credit for these programs will be awarded by Oklahoma regional universities.

Hildenbrand and Hurley will intern with the National Assembly for Wales. Hildenbrand is pursuing dual bachelor's degrees in marketing and political science at UCO with the goal of serving in an elected office. Hurley currently studies organizational communication with a minor in leadership at UCO.

Adcock, Chronister, Jones and Morgan will participate in the study-abroad program at Swansea University. Adcock is a senior double majoring in biology and chemistry at Southeastern. Chronister is working toward a bachelor's in kinesiology and a minor in education from ECU. Jones is a senior at USAO majoring in English with minors in Spanish and liberal arts. Lunk is majoring in global humanities with a minor in English at RSU.

Two University of Oklahoma students are planning to spend a week of their winter break training journalists in Bangladesh. Senior Hailey Branson, graduate student Alex Page and faculty members of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication are scheduled to train with video journalists in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from Jan. 4-11 as part of a U.S. State Department training program.
  
Branson is a Perry native who has never traveled overseas, spent the summer of 2008 as an intern at The Oklahoman, the spring semester writing and doing video work in Washington for Hearst Newspapers, and this past summer at the New York Times. And a great experience was had with the ;Perry Daily Journal at the beginning of her journalism career, at age 15 in the press room, putting newspaper inserts together.
  
Page, of Keller, Texas, completed her bachelor's degree in journalism earlier this year and now is a first-year graduate student in the Gaylord College. Her background is in broadcast journalism, having worked on "OU Nightly" and "Our Sports Pad" in addition to her two years at "SoonerVision."  
  
The students will travel with broadcast professor Ken Fischer, journalism professor Elanie Steyn, "OU Nightly" news director Bob Dickey, and veteran foreign correspondent Mike Boettcher, who is a visiting professor this academic year.