A PUBLICATION OF THE ARKANSAS SCHOOL FOR MATHEMATICS, SCIENCES AND THE ARTS

SUMMER 2015

ASMSA’s female researchers shine on path to ISEF

STEMINISTS

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to join leaders from more than 100 of the nation’s selective admissions public high schools at a summit focusing on the disparity in academic performance between lower-income and higher-income students at advanced levels.

“Closing the Excellence Gap: Advocating for High-Achieving, Low-Income Students” was a two-day symposium hosted by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation in Washington, D.C. The Cooke Foundation is a nonprofit organization that offers the largest scholarships in the country to high-performing students who have financial need.

ASMSA has always maintained a commitment to ensuring the school is a place where both talented and motivated young people can make tremendous progress in their learning regardless of their family’s financial situation. Among students enrolled at ASMSA last year, one in three qualified for federal free and reduced lunch programs. ASMSA enrolls more low-income students than any of the other residential STEM schools and more than doubles the national average of our peer institutions.

In May, ASMSA made its first appearance on The Washington Post’s list of “Public Elite” high schools. The list, curated by columnist Jay Mathews, recognizes schools for their exceptional quality and remarkably talented students. They appear separate from the standard rankings because their admission rules and standardized test scores indicate they have few or no average students.

It’s true that one would be hard-pressed to consider any of our students “average.” Making the extraordinary decision to leave home and take on a set of academic and emotional challenges alone before even considering ACT scores is enough to classify these students as beyond the norm.

Joining the 26 schools on the list meant ASMSA’s average ACT for graduating seniors was above a threshold of 29.3. What stands out to me is that ASMSA has seen continued growth and success while serving a population of students with a large percentage of rural, low-income, first-generation college and other diverse learners.

While the name “Public Elites” can at times suggest exclusivity, it’s important to note that ASMSA is an elite opportunity available to students from across Arkansas.

For many of our graduates, ASMSA is a transformational opportunity that places them on a different path. Alumni have shared countless stories of how this experience has opened doors of possibility that would not have otherwise been available. Arkansas is fortunate to have ASMSA to demonstrate what is possible when we invest in young talent, cultivate it in a community of peers and train students to become life-long learners.

Corey AlderdiceDirector

DirectorCorey Alderdice

Dean of Academic AffairsBob Gregory

Dean of StudentsWilliam Currier

Director of FinanceJaNan Abernathy

Director of AdmissionsValerie Carpenter

Director of Institutional AdvancementVicki Hinz

Board of VisitorsHayward BattleDonna CasparianSteve FarisDonna HutchisonCynthia A. Miller, Ph.D.Will Watson (‘05)Ann Xu (‘10)

Ex-Officio RepresentativesArkansas Science & Technology AuthorityMarta Gwyn Collier

Arkansas Department of Higher EducationBrett Powell, Ed.D.

Arkansas Department of EducationJohnny Key

Department of HeritageJoy Pennington

ASMSA Parents AssociationAmanda Hogue-Nall, President

ASMSA Student GovernmentRex Hearn (’16), President

Tangents is published by the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, a campus of the University of Arkansas System.

For more information about ASMSA, visit our website at www.asmsa.org or call 1-800-345-2767.

Writer and Graphic DesignDonnie Sewell

PhotographyDonnie Sewell Mike Kemp

18 Language of the LandThree students take on the challenge of living in a foreign country.

22 Exchange of IdeasSister City Program provides ASMSA several unique opportunities.

25 Going GlobalThree alumni are finding ways to make our world a bit smaller.

5 ‘Where We Belonged’The Class of 2015 graduates as Charter Class celebrates its 20-year reunion.

13 In Honor Of ...A memorial fund is established in memory of instructor Cliff Happy. 15 Adventures AbroadASMSA invests in international experiences via new program.

#ASMSA

inthisissue

features

1

The #ASMSA Cyborg Dolphin visited Community Developer Margaret Humphrey at an Alternative Spring Break fundraiser. #dolphinpride

SUMMER 2015

/ARMathSciArts

On the Cover: Four of ASMSA’s top seniors tackle diverse research interests and compete at the international science fair. Story on Page 9

ASMSA is #codingARfuture

Page 2

Zhang shines at Intel ISEF

Page 11

The Arkansas School for Math-ematics, Sciences and the Arts will serve as a leading provider of computer science education and educator training in the state through its Coding Arkansas’ Fu-ture initiative.

Coding Arkansas’ Future will provide expanded computer science education courses for schools across Arkansas through ASMSA’s digital learning pro-gram. ASMSA will also provide training, support and mentoring to teachers across the state in computer science. Bob Gregory, ASMSA’s dean of academic af-fairs, announced the new program during the school’s annual Com-munity of Learning Luncheon, which featured Gov. Asa Hutchin-son as the guest speaker at the Ar-

lington Hotel on May 1.“Similar to the ASMSA ethos of

investing centrally in resources to benefit students from across the state, we believe a focused in-vestment in course development and teacher training will produce greater results for districts across Arkansas who are eager to lead the way but may lack the adequate expertise and resources to meet their students’ needs. That’s why I’m excited that this program will be offered at no cost to partner schools,” Gregory said.

The overarching goal of Cod-ing Arkansas’ Future is to guide districts through the first cycle of teaching the state’s new Essen-tials of Computer Programming course while preparing them to move ahead independently in

subsequent years, Gregory said. A new cohort of teachers will begin the process the following year. Fif-teen districts have already signed up for the first cohort. A total of 19 districts will have students in an ASMSA coding course. In total, nearly 300 students will benefit from the program in the first year.

To put that figure into con-text, fewer than 500 high school students took a class in coding in 2014. Of that number, 25 per-cent of the state’s computer sci-ence students were enrolled in ASMSA’s residential program. There are about two dozen dis-tricts in Arkansas currently of-fering computer science classes. While some teachers have said they will grow the opportunities at their schools, other districts that

2

Gov. Asa Hutchinson speaks about the importance of computer science education for students throughout the state during ASMSA’s 2015 Community of Learning Luncheon in May. The Arkansas General Assembly passed a measure earlier this year requiring every public and charter high school in the state to offer a computer science course beginning this fall.

ASMSA ready to lead statewide computer science initiative

3

lack the technical and human re-sources have chosen to use Virtu-al Arkansas as a turnkey solution.

“We quickly realized that the state needed an option some-where in between these two ends of the spectrum,” Gregory said. “For ASMSA, supporting teach-ers who want nothing less than to engage, challenge and inspire students is the heart of everything we do. Why limit that to just our campus?

“Students will be the beneficia-ries of Coding Arkansas’ Future, but we believe the real difference is providing support to the teach-ers who are the risk-takers, in-novators and intellectual entre-preneurs who will help Governor Hutchinson achieve this vision.”

Faculty in the program will have monthly planning, strategy and reflec-tion sessions using digital conferencing tools. ASMSA offered a o n e - w e e k , r e s i d e n t i a l professional development program in late July for faculty from schools participating in the program.

Through collaboration with the Arkansas Computer Science Teachers Association, the goal is to build a professional develop-ment network for these pioneer-ing teachers, Gregory said.

In addition to the faculty devel-opment program, school districts may also choose to participate in ASMSA’s digital learning pro-gram, which will offer Essentials of Computer Programming cours-es taught solely by ASMSA faculty members. The course is included in the STEM Pathways program, which offers several STEM sci-ence and math courses at no cost to Arkansas school districts.

To facilitate the development of

Coding Arkansas’ Future, Daniel Moix (’98), a state and nationally recognized innovator in the field of computer science education, will lead the program. Moix’s pri-mary responsibility will be course development and teacher support for the Essentials of Computer Programming class for 2015-16 and beyond. Moix most recently served as a faculty member at Bryant High School.

“We are impressed with his lev-el of coding knowledge, profes-sional experience and comfort in mentoring as well as leading pro-fessional development. … We look forward to him being one of the state’s most vocal cheerleaders for increasing access to coding,” Gregory said of Moix.

In February, Gov. Hutchinson signed Act 187 into law that re-

quires all public and charter high schools in Arkansas to offer com-puter science education courses beginning with the 2015-16 aca-demic year. The course may be counted as a math credit for stu-dents’ graduation requirements. The law fulfilled a 2014 campaign promise to increase computer science education opportunities within the state.

Task force created

Hutchinson also created a Computer Science Education Task Force to research and rec-ommend computer science and technology standards; study the computer science and technol-ogy needs of the state; and rec-

ommend strategies to meet the anticipated computer science and technology workforce needs of the state.

Carl Frank, an ASMSA comput-er science instructor and president of the state’s Computer Science Teachers Association, is serving as a member of that task force.

Hutchinson praised the work ASMSA has done in providing computer science education to its students. He said the school is serving as a leader in innovation and developing entrepreneurs.

“We are expanding what you started. It’s inspirational; continue to lead us,” Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson said he would like to increase the number of students who have computer programming skills to 20 percent of graduates. That would produce about 6,000

graduates a year who are ready for tech jobs in the state.

“Can you imagine what kind of impact that would have on our economy?” he

said.ASMSA Director Corey Alderd-

ice said this is an important time in the state in regard to computer science education.

“The rest of the state is catch-ing up to a fact we have known for over 20 years – engaging students as not only users but also creators of technology is an essential com-ponent in developing a talented and innovative workforce,” Alder-dice said.

ASMSA is in a unique position to engage students and educa-tors across the state in computer science. “Together, we will inspire the next generation of innova-tors and makers,” Gregory said. “By pairing the expertise and re-sources available at ASMSA with

‘Let me just ask you that whenever you finish your education and you start that entrepreneurial spirit, come back to Arkansas. We want those jobs, and we want that next Silicon Valley right here.’

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, encouraging the ASMSA students in attendance at the 2015 Community of Learning Luncheon to

return to Arkansas to create new jobs for the state

4

the interest and enthusiasm from educators and dis-tricts throughout the state, we will work together to achieve the governor’s vision of coding Arkansas’ future.”

Hutchinson also had a request of the ASMSA stu-dents who were in the audience. He acknowledged that educational and job opportunities will entice them to leave the state. However once they are ready to begin entrepreneurial endeavors, he asked that they return to their home state.

“Some of you are going to be tempted by the world beyond Arkansas,” he said. “That’s OK. Let me just ask you that whenever you finish your education and you start that entrepreneurial spirit, come back to Arkansas. We want those jobs, and we want that next Silicon Valley right here.”

The program also featured state Rep. Laurie Rushing (R-26), who served as mistress of ceremo-nies and is the mother of a 2004 alumna of ASMSA. “This school is part of the entire state,” she said. “If all of the state representatives go back to their districts, they will find the heart of ASMSA in their area.”

Will Watson (’05), a member of the ASMSA Board of Visitors, spoke about his experience as a student at the school. His said ASMSA changed his life by of-fering opportunities he would not have if he didn’t attend the school, including discovering his love of languages and competing in the 2005 Intel Interna-tional Science and Engineering Fair.

“Any successes I have enjoyed as a student and

professional are shared successes with the school at the end of Central Avenue right here in Hot Springs,” he said. “ASMSA inspired me to give back to my com-munity, to appreciate education and to never take for granted the opportunities that we are blessed with and often have to work so hard to attain.”

Watson encouraged those in attendance to make an investment in the students of Arkansas by making a gift to ASMSA. He said it wasn’t just an investment in ASMSA, but “in our own futures, and I believe that is one of the most important investments any of us can make.”

Canon Reeves (‘16), left, demonstrates how a robot built by ASMSA students for a BEST Robotics competition works for a family visiting the Arlington Hotel. Several displays featuring student work in computer science, including robotics, 3D printing and coding, were included as part of the Community of Learning Luncheon. Below, Will Watson (‘05) speaks about how ASMSA changed his life by offering opportunities he would not have had at his local high school.

5

Pictured from the left: Dr. Crystal Morrison (‘95), Alex Harris (‘15), Dr. Kevin Moseby (‘95) and Bailey Bishop (‘15)

20/15

The graduating Class of 2015 shared the spotlight with the Charter Class of 1995 during its 20-year reunion in an event-filled Commencement and Alumni Weekend.

The Arkansas School for Mathe-matics, Sciences and the Arts iden-tifies students with potential, cre-ates an opportunity to develop that potential and provides them the opportunity to celebrate success, said Eric Jackson, general manager of Oaklawn Park, said during the school’s commencement ceremony for the Class of 2015.

Jackson was the featured speak-er for May 23’s ceremony that was held in Horner Hall at the Hot Springs Convention Center. He spoke about how horse racing can be broken down into finding horses with potential, development of that potential and celebration of suc-cess.

ASMSA operates much the same way, he said. The school seeks out students who have potential to suc-ceed in its academic program from across Arkansas, including small

rural school districts, he said. It cre-ates an “unbelievable learning envi-ronment where potential can be de-veloped,” he said, leading students to successful educational careers.

Jackson continued with the par-allels between horse racing and ASMSA. Every year about 30,000 horses are born, and each year about 30,000 students graduate from high school, he said. Of those racehorses, only about 100 eventu-ally rise to the top. It is the same for high school seniors – only a few rise to the top. “And I also know 102 of them are sitting in this room right now,” he said.

Each year, there are about 40,000 races across the country. The very best are awarded what’s called Grade I status. There are only a handful to earn that status, Jack-son said, including the Arkansas Derby and the Kentucky Derby.

Similarly there are about 40,000 high schools in this country. The very best are awarded the equiva-lent of a Grade I status, he said, in-cluding ASMSA which was ranked No. 10 in the nation by The Daily Beast in 2014.

To succeed, however, the sup-port team is critical. The horses have to have good people around it to develop its potential. By the time a horse gets to the races, 81 people, including trainers, jockeys, exercise riders, veterinarians and many oth-ers have had a hand in its develop-ment, Jackson said.

While he could not be sure of the number of people involved in each graduates’ success, he said he would not be surprised if that num-ber was at least 81 when parents, teachers at all levels, counselors, neighbors, coaches, family mem-bers and many others are included.

6

‘This is where we belonged’Graduates overcome challenges to reach potential

And just as in horse racing, it helps to be in the right place, he said. Being able to say that you gradu-ated from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts is an important distinction from other high schools, he said.

In the end, however, the students’ ultimate success is up to them, he said.

“If you really were racehorses, you’d be the heavy favorites. So the question is not if you’ll be successful; the question is when and where. And that may come down to what is your personal definition of success,” he said.

Jackson shared ex-amples of several of his friends. One is a success-ful CEO of a big business. Another is a physician who runs a free clinic in his spare time. Yet anoth-er used to have a profes-sional career that he gave up to run a ministry in a low-income neighbor-hood.

“Whatever it is, you’ll have to define your own definition of success. I’m pretty sure if it involves being challenged, being fulfilled, being engaged and being personally sat-isfied, you will have found your success,” he said.

He said his personal hope was that they would find their success in Ar-kansas. It is the people of Arkansas who made ASMSA and the students’ opportu-nity to attend such a school a pos-sibility, he said, adding that if they find success in Arkansas, the in-vestment in the school and them is rewarded.

“Because truth is, Arkansas needs you. The best way for our

state to develop its own potential is if the best and brightest among us help lead us. And you are our best and brightest,” he said.

The Class of 2015 included 102 graduates who were recognized during the may ceremony. As a

class, the students earned $14.6 million in scholarship offers from colleges, universities and other sources.

The ceremony also featured two speakers from among the gradu-ates. Senior Sophia Ly, who served as president of the Student Govern-

ment Association, spoke as did Nila Ray of Pine Bluff, who was chosen from among several graduates who submitted speeches to speak at the ceremony.

Ly focused on how the students had changed and grown through

their shared experiences at ASMSA. She said they changed as soon as they walked through the doors of ASMSA wanting the challenge, the new ex-periences “and the com-munity of fellow nerds. And with that first step we took on campus, we knew that this is where we belonged.”

She said that a dear friend once told her that a place is only as good as the people. “I guess that makes ASMSA a pretty great place,” she said.

Ray said that ASMSA was her chance to final-ly reach her full poten-tial among other driven, hard-working individu-als. From the first day of their junior year, mem-bers of the Class of 2015 began to reach their full potential, she said.

“Two years ago, I would not have had the courage to stand be-fore you today. Before ASMSA, I was just a name with a face. I had no clue what maturity, respon-sibility, leadership and individuality truly meant. Today, I’m Nila Ray, who has much to tell you about her time here, who

has gone through struggles, who has reached amazing accomplish-ments, who has found the person within herself. I think I can say on behalf of my peers and myself, thank you ASMSA for giving us a chance we would not have had oth-erwise,” she said.

7

students graduated as part of ASMSA’s 21st class.

ASMSA Class of 2015

BY THE NUMBERS102

$14.6 million

in scholarship offers were made to class members.

was the average ACT composite score graduates earned.29.8

32% will be the first in their family to earn a college degree.

60% of the graduates have declared a major in a STEM subject.

74.5% will continue their studies at an Arkansas university.

To view photos from the commencement ceremony, visit http://asmsa.me/2015gradphotos.

8

We asked members of the Charter Class to share some of their memories about the school as part of a celebration of their 20-year anniversary. These are a few of their answers.

‘I would say the most important lesson ASMS(A) taught me was confidence in myself. It is amazing what you can accomplish when you believe in yourself; and like many who attended, one of the reasos for going to the school was to get away from persecution/isolation at my previous school due to being a nerd.’

Chris Hotz, on how ASMSA had an effect on his life,

both professionally and personally

‘These teachers taught me so much more than the book stuff. They gave me reality. They showed me that you learn more as you make mistakes, as you struggle, as you examine things from a different angle. They showed me it’s OK to not be perfect; in fact, it’s more than OK because none of us are perfect.’

Dr. Crystal Morrison, on the instructors for the Charter Class

‘Being an ASMSA student opened up the world to me. It is where I learned how to live with people seemingly different than me; it fueled my compassion for humankind just as much as it enabled me to critically question, think, write and read.’

Dr. Kevin Moseby, on the most important thing he learned at

ASMSA that he still relates to today

‘What I liked about it back then was that we weren’t all top-of-the-class, highest ACT/SAT, most well-rounded (students). I feel like the ASMSA I went to gave a taste of an ‘other life’ that gave me the motivation to explore the world and develop myeslf to my full potential. ’

Elizabeth Young, J.D., on how ASMSA affected her personally and

spurred her education and career path

‘Often the most important longterm gains of an activity — be it education or otherwise — are the people you meet, not the specifics of what you learned or what happened.’

Stephen McCaul, on the most important thing he learned

as a member of the Charter Class

‘Matilda Buchanan. She is smart, tough and honest. I needed someone to tell me my weaknesses without sugar-coating, and she did without judgment. This helped me overcome them much faster than I would have otherwise.’

Dr. Natasha Lavelle-Mallette, on her favorite instructor

9

Research Like a GirlJackie Mosely (‘15), clockwise from top left, Deisy Abarca (‘15), Nila Ray (‘15) and Ashley Barto (‘15) respresented ASMSA at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May.

Female quartet strong reps for ASMSA at ISEFASMSA’s contingent to this

year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair was the larg-est in recent years.

Five students qualified for the competition held in Pittsburgh, Pa., in May. What was special about the group was that four of the five students who had quali-fied for the international competi-tion were female.

Deisy Abarca (’15), Ashley Barto (’15) and Nila Ray (’15) each quali-fied for the competition through ASMSA’s West Central Regional Science Fair, which was held in February. Abarca won first-place overall in the competition fol-

lowed by Barto and Ray.Jackie Mosely (’15) earned her

spot by placing fifth in the over-all competition at the Arkansas State Science and Engineering Fair, held at the University of Cen-tral Arkansas in Conway in April. ASMSA won the state overall school competition for the second year in a row.

Abarca said getting to visit with Dr. Crystal Morrison (‘95) was her favorite part of her ISEF experi-ence.

Morrison served as a judge at the 2015 Intel International Sci-ence and Engineering Fair. Mor-rison is a technology manager in

corporate and science technology for PPG Industries in Pittsburgh. Unbeknownst to her before the competition, five ASMSA students were also in attendance at the sci-ence fair, representing the school in a competition of the globe’s top young researchers.

During a break from judging, she took the opportunity to con-nect with the ASMSA students. She visited each of the students’ project booths to chat.

Morrison served as an example of what they could accomplish in their lives and careers after grad-uating from ASMSA.

“She was part of the Charter

Class, so it was fun to hear her re-flect back on her years here,” said Abarca, whose project focused on a new method of delivering can-cer-fighting drugs. “It was also super cool to learn about her life after ASMSA. She has a great job in Pittsburgh, and she continues to pursue several of the goals and ideas that were ignited during her time at ASMSA.”

ISEF brings more than 1,700 high school students from more than 70 countries, regions and territories to showcase their in-dependent research and compete for more than $5 million in prizes, the competition’s website said.

The diversity of competitors wasn’t lost on the ASMSA stu-dents. Several of them mentioned that such a diversity of students helped make the competition even more special.

“ISEF was life-changing,” said Barto, whose project examined the shape of reproduction plant-lets of the Kalanchoe daigremon-tiana plant. “While there, I met students from all over the world: Germany, South Africa, Japan and Ireland to name a few.

“I met a boy from Colombia who did not speak great Eng-lish, and we conversed mostly in Spanish, which allowed me to gain practice. I also met a student from Slovakia who was in the United States for the first time; I was able to help him with his English as well. Through our conversations, I realized these students share the same passions I have.”

Mosely said the diversity of the competitors was her favorite part of ISEF. She met people from Tur-key, Ireland and Canada among others.

“It was beyond amazing to see all these different cultures com-bined into one,” she said.

Mosely also said she enjoyed the judging aspect of ISEF. Mose-ly’s project focused on the plausi-bility of two classroom-teaching

models called Mutual Engage-ment and Classroom Inversion. During the judging at the regional and state science fairs, she didn’t visit with more than three judges at each competition. AT ISEF, she had a total of 16 judges visit her booth.

“I was nervous to talk to the first few, but after four or five, it was breeze,” she said.

The regional and state com-petitions helped prepare her for the ISEF interviews, she said. The ISEF interviews had another ef-fect as well — they gave her con-fidence.

“I may not have placed in (ISEF), but I did win the ability to believe in myself and what I can do intellectually. ISEF changed

my outlook on life,” she said.Ray, whose project focused on

developing a photovoltaic drip ir-rigation system for biodiesel crop growth, used the ASMSA and state science fairs to figure out how to speak about her project in a cohe-sive manner.

“It’s difficult to explain to peo-ple why I have a project that is half engineering and half chemistry, but I learned how to do so through those two events. The judges at both events gave me helpful, con-structive feedback that allowed me to change a few parts to clarify everything,” she said.

Ray said the ISEF judges asked very detailed questions about

10

ASMSA Documentary Filmmaking students interviewed the top-four overall finishers in the 2015 West Central Regional Science Fair

about their Fundamentals in Research Methods projects, preparing for the science fair and what it was like to hear their names called as winners.

Visit the link below each photo to watch each individual’s video.

Deisy Abarca (’15), 1st place

Abarca discusses her research into an easier way of providing a cancer-fighting drug at http://asmsa.me/deisyabarcafirm.

Nila Ray (’15), 3rd place

Ray speaks about her project, which focused on growing plants for biodiesel, at https://vimeo.com/armathsciarts/nilarayfirm.

FIRM grasp of top honors

Ashley Barto (’15), 2nd place

Barto talks about her research of reproduction plantlets of the Kalanchoe daigremontiana plant at http://asmsa.me/ashleybartofirm.

Taryn Imamura (’16), 4th place

Imamura describes how she used rice byproducts to create a surfactant for industrial use at http://asmsa.me/tarynimamurafirm.

See ISEF, Page 12

It’s not about the flashiness of a project but about substance — that’s a important lesson Joseph Zhang (’15) learned this summer at the annual Intel Inter-national Science and Engineering Fair.

Zhang earned a spot at this year’s international contest in May in Pittsburgh, Pa., by placing first in the Overall Awards category at the Arkansas State Science and Engineering Fair in April.

When he set his project up at the international fair, he was next to a team from Vietnam in his cate-gory. They made a glove that uses ultrasonic sensors to help blind people sense objects more easily. The sensors give the person information such as loca-tions of objects in front of them.

“They got interviewed by media and by Intel. It was just incredible. They got swarmed again by mid-dle school groups (who visited the fair),” he said.

At the awards ceremony, however, all of that at-tention didn’t pay off. The team didn’t win an award.

Zhang was the one who had his named called, how-ever, taking home a Third Award in the Engineering Mechanics category. The award included a $1,000 prize. The ASMSA senior was very surprised, he said.

Zhang’s project focused on making curved sur-faces possible in 3D printing. Extrusion-based 3D printing can’t make a smooth, curved surface as it prints each layer flat on top of he previous layer. Zhang’s computer program attempts to alleviate that problem by analyzing digital files differently.

He worked with Nick Seward, one of ASMSA’s computer science instructors and a 3D printing en-thusiast, to develop the program. “He was the best adviser I could have had. Because he is so experi-enced in 3D printing, he’s able to point out some stuff that only people experienced with 3D printing could point out, like little gimmicks and such,” he said.

He began working on his project in summer 2014, researching how 3D printers take instructions. It started out as a school project, but once he saw his first print, he became more excited, he said.

“It was a process of trial and error. You make some observations of the print. You see some weird bumps over here. Wonder what made that happen? You make some changes and reprint,” he said.

Zhang considers his project a success. He was able to print a rectangular bar with a curved surface, similar to a soap bar. The top was as smooth at the printer could print, he said. Comparing it to another bar printed using a different commercial printing program, he said you could definitely see and feel

the difference. His program performed better.Zhang initially wrote his program for his Funda-

mentals in Research Methods project, which every student is required to complete in their senior year. His presentation at ASMSA focused more on the in-ner workings of his program. He won first place in the computer science category, making him eligible to compete at the state competition, but he did not finish in the top four overall.

Between the two competitions, he switched the focus of his presentation more to 3D printing and its applications and flaws instead of solely focusing on his program. The change worked well as he won first place in his category at state. The judges at ISEF also seemed to like his project’s focus, based on the ques-tions he was asked, he said.

Zhang said he plans to major in computer science at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, which has a 3D printing lab.

Zhang learns value of substance over style at international science fair

Joseph Zhang (‘15) won a Third Award in the Engineering Mechanics category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held in Pittsburgh, Pa., in May.

11

12

projects to determine the practi-cal application of the research. Many of the questions were sim-ple but tricky, testing the present-ers on basic terms to evaluate their knowledge of their findings, she said.

Barto said one advantage at ISEF was that all of the judges for her project were plant biologists rather than a mix of disciplines. The specialization in the field was beneficial.

Barto said she also had two pro-fessors who gave her their contact information, telling her to contact them upon undergraduate gradu-ation if she was still doing plant science.

“When the professor gave me her card, I was ecstatic,” Barto said.

Ray said she loved participat-ing in each stage of the science fair competition. Students devel-op their science fair projects to meet their Fundamentals in Re-search Methods requirement.

“It’s one of my favorite aspects of ASMSA,” Ray said. “I think if I had to choose, my favorite part would be being able to share my work and my ideas with others — just seeing it all come together in one presentation and seeing oth-ers get just as excited about my project as I am!”

Abarca said FIRM was a unique opportunity to explore a disease that had intrigued her for a long time. It also afforded her the op-portunity to do research in a real-world lab at the University of Ar-kansas at Little Rock’s Center for Nanotechnology Sciences.

“The opportunity to—at 17 years old—conduct research at such an intricate level was priceless. ASMSA’s FIRM program exposed me to an intriguing field with lots of potential,” Abarca said.

ISEF Continued from Page 10

One of the hardest things for many new college graduates to do is find that first job after gradua-tion. Their youthfulness and per-ceived lack of experience can be deal breakers for many employ-ers when applying for a job. If the graduate even receives an inter-view, often the jobs are not neces-sarily well-paying or as challeng-ing as the graduate may want.

That’s why the opportunity Sreesh Reddy (’10) received last year is so important. Reddy was selected as a member of the first class of Arkansas Fellows. The Arkansas Fel-lowship pro-gram offers two-year fel-lowships to a select group of college seniors, connecting ac-complished and highly motivated undergraduates seeking world-class entrepreneurial experiences with Arkansas companies.

The fellows spend two years after graduation working for the company in a paid fellowship. The company provides an executive-level mentor, allowing the fellows to develop a network of business leaders, co-workers and peers.

The fellows also have monthly meetings where they can meet other entrepreneurs and business leaders, hear guest speakers and share their experiences with other fellows. They also visit the other fellows at their jobs.

At the end of the day of in-terviews, the companies ranked their top five in order of who they wanted to hire, and the students ranked their top five companies in order of for whom they wished to work. The first class included 10 fellows.

Reddy’s first interview of the day was with Perks, a business that manages employee incentive programs for companies across the United States as well as Latin America and Europe. The Little Rock office has only about 30 em-ployees.

The company’s representatives seemed like great people and it was a smaller company, which he liked, Reddy said.

“I wanted to be in a situation where I would be given a lot of re-sponsibility initially and forced to learn on the fly,” Reddy said.

Reddy was preparing to gradu-ate from Hendrix College in Con-way with a degree in biochemistry as he went through the interview process. One of his strongest suits was being able to think about data and analyze it in a critical way.

Reddy was part of an entrepre-neurial team to start Acorn Hours, a Little Rock-based startup that de-veloped a program that helped stu-dents streamline information about community service requirements for college and job applications.

None of the others accepted into the Arkansas Fellowship pro-gram had a startup background, he said. That startup experience was important, he said.

Reddy began his fellowship with Perks in June 2014.

“My biggest reason for doing this was just to gain as much ex-perience working in the business world with as much responsibil-ity as possible. I’ve learned it’s so important to be around positive people.

“Being a part of an engaged workforce is so rewarding. Every-one is invested in working here. You need to empower the people around you,” he said.

Reddy an Arkansas Fellow

Reddy

To learn more about the Arkansas Fellowship program, visit arkansasfellowship.org.

13

A memorial endowment has been established in honor of an Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sci-ences and the Arts instructor who died during the fall semester.

The Clifford O. Happy Memorial Endowment hon-ors Cliff Happy, a humanities instructor who joined the ASMSA faculty in August 2006. Happy died un-expectedly in September 2014.

The endowment will allow ASMSA to offer con-fidential financial assistance to needy students throughout the school year. It honors Happy’s efforts to help at least one student a year. Happy worked with ASMSA’s dean of students to identify a needy student annually in order to confidentially provide that student with spending money each month.

Happy’s family wanted to continue helping ASMSA students in his honor. Georgia Happy approached The ASMSA Foundation about establishing a fund that would continue her husband’s legacy of aiding students. The family made a gift of $20,000 to es-tablish the fund, ensuring that the endowment will be able to aid students in perpetuity.

Georgia Happy said the family felt it was impor-tant for Happy’s legacy of giving to continue at the school that he loved. She said Happy would tell her about the various needs of his students and how he wanted to help take care of them.

“ASMSA was the favorite part of his life,” she said. “Having known him since he was 22 years old, teach-ing at ASMSA was the most joy he had. … I know that was his heart to help the kids who were financially strapped.”

The endowment will provide $50 gift certificates to a minimum of 15 low-income ASMSA students each year. As the endowment matures and addition-al gifts are contributed to the program, funding may be used for additional support throughout the year at the discretion of the Happy family.

The Happy family also gave ASMSA $750 in De-cember to provide the first round of gift cards to 15 students before the endowment was officially estab-lished.

Georgia Happy said the outpouring of love and stories the family has received from alumni, students and their parents since Happy’s death has been tre-mendous. She was surprised at the number of hand-written letters the family has received.

“In this age of Facebook and emails, it’s amaz-ing how many handwritten letters we received from students and parents sharing stories I didn’t know about — stories about how Cliff had helped them. It has been such an outpouring. He would be so sur-

prised. I don’t think anyone could know how humble he was,” she said.

One student’s father shared in a letter how Hap-py helped his daughter with an emotional struggle through which she was going. Happy served 22 years in the U.S. Marine Corps before retiring as a First Sergeant in 2003 and becoming an educator. From his military experience, he recognized that the student was suffering from symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder after an undisclosed incident.

“He was the only person who broached the sub-ject with her and her family and got her help,” Geor-gia Happy said.

Vicki Hinz, director of institutional advancement, said she has heard similar sentiments about Happy’s impact at ASMSA.

“Students and alumni have shared with me the impact that Cliff Happy had on their lives,” she said. “He left his mark on ASMSA and the students he so deeply cared and provided for each year. This year’s senior class is planning to plant a tree in honor of their teacher and mentor. Whether a tree or the Clif-ford O. Happy Memorial Endowment, Cliff’s lifetime of giving will be remembered at ASMSA.”

To make a gift to the Clifford O. Happy Memorial Endowment, visit http://asmsa.me/happyendowment.

Cliff Happy was a humanities instructor at ASMSA until his unexpected death last year. Students honored Happy this spring unveiling a small monument and tree planted in his honor next to the Student Center.

Memorial endowment honors Happy

14

Students, teachers, administrators and alumni are taking advantage of many opportunities across the globe. Over the next few pages, discover where they are or have been and why their trips and work are a growing part of what

makes ASMSA special.

ASMSA Takes on the World

15

Eye-opening experiencesGlobal Learning Program turns students into ‘critical thinkers’

ASMSA students have had mul-tiple opportunities to travel abroad over the course of the school’s history, taking educational trips to other countries. While the trips were led by a member of the fac-ulty and meant to be educational, they were never a formal part of ASMSA’s curriculum.

In 2014, that changed with the launch of the ASMSA Global Learning Program, which provid-ed several opportunities for more students to study abroad with some financial assistance from the school. In the two years since

the program started, students have visited China, Greece, Italy, England, Ireland, Wales, Spain and Costa Rica. Next year, trips to Italy, Spain and Quebec, Canada are planned. The Spain and Que-bec trips are specifically designed to immerse students in Spanish and French language and culture.

The program has three goals:• Enhance student understand-

ing of different countries and cul-tures;

• Foster global awareness and critical thinking skills through ex-periential learning; and

• Teach students how to trav-el abroad in a safe and efficient manner.

More than 30 students each year have been able to take ad-vantage of the learning opportu-nities the trips have offered. Each student received a $750 grant to-ward the initial cost of the trips. Students also filled out a financial aid application that provided sev-eral partial- and full-cost schol-arships for students who may not otherwise be able to afford the trips. This ensured that approxi-mately ten low-income students

From the left: Laura Beth Durham (‘15), Kali Fleming (‘15), Le’Aysha Pearson (‘15) and Taryn Imamura (‘16) pose for a photo in front of Buckingham Palace during a Global Learning Program trip to United Kingdom during Spring Break in March. Besides the United Kingdom, students also have traveled to Greece, Spain, Italy, Costa Rica and China in the past two years.

16

also were able to take part in the experience each year.

Humanities instructor Ron Luckow serves as the coordinator for the program. He said the trips allow students to compare their own culture and customs to those who live in the countries they visit. Many of the students return with an interest in learning a second language — if they were not al-ready taking a second language, — and to learn more about other cul-tures and countries, he said. They also begin to compare their home country to the one they visited.

“They start to look at their country in a different perspective,” he said. “People have different ways of doing things. They start making comparisons; they start to see the differences between their culture and other cultures. They learn the value of learning a sec-ond language.

“They’ll start doing things dif-ferently. When they start doing that, they’re critical thinkers. If you live your whole life in one re-gion, you’ll be a very one-dimen-

sional thinker in how you perceive things. But if you travel to other places and are exposed to dif-ferent ways of doing things, you become aware in ways you just wouldn’t reading books.”

Dan McElderry, a Spanish instructor, agreed with Luck-ow about the value of the trips. McElderry has led many student trips to Spain and Costa Rica before the Global Learning Pro-gram was initiated. The trips often lasted at least four weeks during which students lived with na-tive speakers. He would also take them on the streets to visit mar-kets and other attractions where they would have to use Spanish.

“It opens their eyes,” McEldeery said. “That’s what the whole trip does. It opens their eyes to a world other than their community. They’re learning street smarts — how to get around, how to shop and do what you need to do. I’m teaching them how to be a citizen of the world. With this experience, they can go most anywhere and have a basic understanding of what it takes.”

Learning how to travel is one of the focuses of the program. Prior to the trips, students take part in sessions that help them prepare for their trips. On the list of les-sons is how to pack. Often the trips are going to be busy, requir-ing students to pack lightly as the tours go from town to town. They are limited on how much luggage they can bring and must learn to include all of their essentials, from enough clothing to toiletries to room for keepsakes from the trip.

“It’s an important concept. A lot of them want to bring two or three suitcases. You have to pack lightly as you’re going form site to site and city to city. One of the big things is learning to travel light to get on and off flights and buses as necessary without having to wor-ry about losing a bag or holding the group up,” Luckow said.

The first year of the program all of the trips were held during the summer after the school year ended. In 2015, all of the trips were moved to Spring Break with the thought that more emphasis

A group of ASMSA students pose for a photo during a Global Learning Program trip to Italy in 2014. Nicole Brooks (‘15), second from left, said the trip provided the students great opportunities to learn about Italian culture as well as how to speak some Italian in addition to visiting historical sites.

17

could be placed on the education-al aspects of the trip while align-ing some of the experiences with ASMSA courses.

Students were required to complete projects leading up to the trip, such as doing a report on a site they would visit on the trip. They also each presented reports on the trip as part of a class proj-ect after returning from the trip.

“This is, foremost, an education-al trip,” Luckow said. “We stressed that over and over. They’re learn-ing a lot of things on the tours. Mostly they’re learning culture and history but also how to travel.”

More than sight-seeing

That doesn’t mean the students were only going to be taking staid tours of popu-lar sites. Ni-cole Brooks (’15) said she was hesitant at first about taking the trip to Italy in 2014. She was expect-ing the trip to be heavy on tours of sites, she said. Instead she found she was able to learn many different thing about the culture and how to speak some Italian.

“I didn’t realize how much ag-riculture was part of their culture. There were huge fields and there were many fruit trees in the mid-dle of the streets. Ten days sounds like a lot, but it was a whirlwind. There was so much information. I wish we had more time,” she said.

Anna Reckling (’15), who also went on the Italy trip, said the stu-dents had some time to explore on their own, providing them the opportunity to discover and learn about the culture of Italy just by walking somewhere.

“That was powerful in itself. Once I got there, it fulfilled and

overflowed my expectations,” she said.

She said being given the trust and responsibility to walk and shop in the cities on their own was nice. Some of the group vis-ited a café where they were able to get gelato and espresso. During the school year, the students who went on the trip would sometimes just visit about the trip or a piece of artwork they never thought they’d get to see.

It was the first time Reckling had traveled outside of the United States. It was also special because her father has an Italian heritage. “It meant a lot for him for me to be able to go,” she said.

For Mara Campbell (’15), her trip to China was an opportunity to put the Mandarin Chinese she

learned at her home school and ASMSA to the test.

“It was a chance to speak it and hear how people actually say it, not just how it is in the book,” Campbell said. “I practiced ev-ery question I knew in Mandarin (before the trip). A lot of people in China want to practice their Eng-lish. I’d try to speak Mandarin and they’d try to speak English.”

Before her trip, Campbell did a presentation on Shanghai for the group. It ended up being her favorite part of the trip because it felt familiar because of her re-search.

“They get to see things they’ve only read about and studied in the classroom,” Luckow said. “They get to see it first hand, and it’s a lot

different than a picture in a book. They get to walk around and see it and touch it. It’s a whole different experience.”

The trips also benefit stu-dents in their regular classrooms. McElderry said he had two stu-dents in a fall Spanish class who had been on the 2014 Costa Rica trip. Those students spoke openly without fear or nervousness in the class. They weren’t afraid to make a mistake.

“Even though they have so much to learn, they have the self confidence that ‘I can carry on a conversation even if I don’t know everything.’ They learn how to communicate,” he said.

While the trips are mainly fo-cused on providing students an opportunity to travel and learn,

it’s benefi-cial for the i n s t r u c t o r s who serve as c h a p e ro n e s on the trip as well.

“It’s not a vacation for us either,” Luckow said. “The benefit

we get from it is that we get to see students experience another cul-ture and think critically about the world. That in itself is a rewarding experience.”

McElderry said trips such as his month-long Costa Rica ex-perience or his upcoming 10-day immersion experience in Spain revitalizes him.

“It helps me to keep my own abilities fresh and alive. It makes me desire to be a better teacher. It makes me proud I helped these students achieve something in life that many of them never would have. Because I was willing to do this, I gave them an opportunity that is once in a lifetime. Because of it, they will go on to do other things,” he said.

‘It opens their eyes to a world other than their community. They’re learning street smarts — how to get around, how to shop and do what you need to do. I’m teaching them to be a citizen of the world. With this experience, they can go most anywhere and have a basic understanding of what it takes.’

Dan McElderry, Spanish instructor, speaking about how the trips are providing opportunities to grow as global citizens

18

You don’t speak the native language fluently. Few people in the country you are visiting speak your na-tive language, and the people who do are rarely flu-ent in it.

But there’s something about living within a com-munity — learning the traditions, habits and every-day routines of those who do live there — that can make learning the language easier. It allows those involved on both sides of the language barrier to be-come more connected in a way that helps them to overcome the obstacles associated with learning a language in a classroom. It also assists them in de-veloping friendships that can help promote a better global understanding between nations.

That’s the goal of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y), a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. High school stu-dents and recent high school graduates may earn

merit-based scholarships that provide them the op-portunity to spend a summer or an academic year in an overseas immersion program. The program fo-cuses on less commonly taught languages, prepar-ing American citizens to be leaders in a global world by helping them develop necessary linguistic skills and cultural knowledge.

In 2014, two ASMSA students spent the summer learning Chinese in different parts of China. This summer, another student will spend the summer learning Arabic in Morocco. It is the third year in a row an ASMSA student has received a NSLI-Y schol-arship.

For Kali Fleming (’15) and Sophia Ly (’15), their summers in China were an opportunity to begin and expand their knowledge of Mandarin Chinese re-spectively. For Tyler Kee (’15), the trip this summer to Morocco will allow him to continue his study of

One of the best ways to learn a new language is through immersion — living in a country

with native speakers of the language.

From the front: Kali Fleming (‘15), Sophia Ly (‘15) and Tyler Kee (‘15) were all chosen to participate in the National Security Language Inititative for

Youth (NSLI-Y). The program provides students the opportunity to spend six weeks in another country

learning its language and culture.

19

Arabic he began while partici-pating in the Yale Young Global Scholars program in 2014.

For each participant, the op-portunity is about more than learning a language. It’s about the other experiences they had or will have that only living in the culture for an extended period of time can provide.

Kali Fleming

Fleming said her experi-ence began similar to her time at ASMSA. She would spend the week in a dorm at a school, go-ing to class in the morning on weekdays at Xiuzhou Modern Experimental School in Jiaxing. Her roommate in the dorm was a member of her host family.

Each morning was filled with classes where Fleming would have to converse in Chinese with the native speak-ers. The after-noons were usu-ally filled with a cultural experi-ence, such as a calligraphy class, painting or a trip to Shanghai.

She had no Chinese language experience before the trip, so that made the first few days a bit wor-risome, Fleming said.

“At first all I really knew how to say was hello and could I go to sleep,” she said.

Fortunately her host family was very helpful, she said. Her room-mate’s father would pick them up on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend at the family’s home.

She quickly built a friendship with her roommate’s father, who is a lawyer. Fleming said she is considering law school. She also had to pick a subject for a culmi-nating project similar to ASMSA’s Fundamentals in Research Meth-ods project at the Chinese school.

She chose traditional Chinese landscaping, another subject her roommate’s father was interested in, which led to the family taking her on trips to several gardens during the weekends.

Throughout her time at the family’s home, she built friend-ships in addition to her language skills, she said.

“My host family was really wel-coming and friendly and happy to have me there. Even though there was a barrier with the language at first, they found other ways to make me feel welcome. My host sister was also pretty good at English and helped translate,” Fleming said.

Around the third week, she could understand more of what her host family was saying. Dur-ing one of the trips in the car,

her host mother said something to her host father. Fleming knew what the host mother said.“I was like ‘I understood that!’

She was basically asking where were we going to eat for lunch. So it was amazing to see how much progress you can make when you’re completely immersed,” she said.

At ASMSA and her home school, Fleming focused on learn-ing Spanish, but it was mostly within the confines of a class-room. Her trip to China was a true immersion experience — one that she says may have been more ed-ucational in a sense.

“I think immersion is much bet-ter because you are forced out of your comfort zone and learn (the language) because you have to

be able to make your basic needs known, figure out how to live daily life. Whenever you’re in a class-room, you learn more grammar. From what I learned in China, even if you say something incor-rectly, they understand. You may use the wrong order in a sentence, but they will correct you. You learn how to say it just by messing up,” she said.

This was the first time she had been out of the United States on her own. Fleming said the week before she was set to leave she was scared since she had not been overseas before, especial-ly by herself, but on the flight to Shanghai, several students who had several years of Chinese ex-perience taught the beginners some simple phrases and words. Once she met her host family,

the nerves disap-peared, she said.

The relation-ships she forged during her time were special, Fleming said. The night before she was set to return home, she

received an email from her host father who told her they were so happy the family had the oppor-tunity to meet her. It had provid-ed them the opportunity to learn more about the U.S. and its cul-ture. He said their meeting helped improve the relationship between the U.S. and China in a small way, even if it was just between the family and Fleming.

Fleming said the trip broad-ened her worldview, allowing her to see that many of the things she did at home they also did in China. “It makes you ask different ques-tions and see the world in a differ-ent light,” she said.

She did take Mandarin I upon returning to ASMSA in the fall, in which she began learning to write Chinese characters. She hopes

‘I think immersion is much better because you are forced out of your comfort zone and learn (the language) because you have to be able to make your basic needs known, figure out how to live daily life. ... You learn how to say it just by messing up.’

Kali Fleming (‘15), on living in China for six weeks

2020

to have the chance to do another study abroad in college but for Spanish — spending a semester abroad in Spain or Argentina.

Sophia Ly

Ly had — in her words — very minor prior experience with Chi-nese. She said her mom tried to get her to learn Mandarin, but she never took it seriously. Some members of her family are Chi-nese, but they speak Cantonese.

So her experience in Zhuhai, which is near the Southern coast of China across a bay from Hong Kong, was a special experience. Zhuhai is a large city of a few mil-lion people, she said, and was very modernized. Zhuhai sits in a spe-cial economic zone so it has lots of businesses and industries.

Ly lived with her host family. One of her first challenges was to be able to make it to classes. She would wake up about 6:30 each morning in order to make it on time using a public transportation bus.

“I was on this bus with a bunch of people I didn’t understand. It was so packed,” she said.

The mornings would be spent in a language class. Each day, stu-dents would be given a two-hour lunch. Each person was assigned a language partner from the school who would guide them around the campus during the lunch break, answering questions and allow-ing some one-on-one time to learn the language, she said. After lunch, students would return to the classroom for a cultural activ-ity, such as tai chi or playing the Chinese zither.

Before her group left the U.S. for China, students went through an orientation where they were told they likely would experience a culture shock at some point during their six-week stay. They would need to be ready to face new challenges.

“They taught us that we don’t have to look at culture shock so negatively because if you do get hit by culture shock you’re learn-ing something new. You’re expe-riencing a whole new side of the world, and you have to take ad-vantage of that,” she said.

Ly lived in an apartment with her host family, comprised of a married couple with their 7-year-old son and one grandparent. Her host father was an English teacher, so it was easy speaking English to him. If she couldn’t figure out how to tell them something in Chinese, she was able to tell him in English and he would understand.

She said living with the fam-ily each day was very beneficial to learn what daily life was like in China. The family took her with them on trips into the city, includ-ing the grocery store.

“Walmart in China is super dif-ferent. You can buy live seafood in Walmart in China. Living in a Chinese home is a little different, too, ranging from laundry to din-ner. It was nice because you got to

depend on the family and feel safe around them because they take you in under their wing,” she said.

What was most surprising, however, was how similar life in China was to the U.S., she said. For example, everything she brought with her as a gift for her host fam-ily could be found there in China.

“I guess people forget China is just as modernized, if not more modernized, than the U.S. China is a bit more diverse, though, be-cause it has that traditional Chi-nese atmosphere,” she said.

On weekends, she would take trips with either her host family or other students from the school. One weekend trip with the school, the students visited a smaller vil-lage outside of the city. One of her fellow students had blue eyes, and people in the village were fasci-nated. They had never met anyone with blue eyes.

“They were so eager to learn English and about American cul-ture,” she said.

Ly did have to learn how to adjust to one big change — the

Sophia Ly (‘15), left, said one of the most important lessons she learned from her trip to China was to not look at culture shock in a negative sense. Experiencing culture shock means you are learning something new and you should take advantage of the opportunity, she said.

21

lack of social media and texting. Facebook, Twitter and Google are blocked in China. That also meant no Gmail or YouTube.

“I started out saying ‘I don’t need Facebook or Twitter. I’ll be fine.’ But after a while I was kind of bummed,” she said. She began us-ing the Chinese version of Face-book as well as other versions of popular apps.

“At first I missed having Face-book and all the social media and texting, but after a while I just in-dulged myself with all that was happening around me. I stopped thinking about it. It was nice hav-ing a break from social media. I just kinda left it and explored China.”

Ly took three years of Spanish prior to her China trip, but she said living for those six weeks in China she now feels like she knows more Chinese than she does Spanish. That’s in great part because she lived there, she said.

“I feel like if you live somewhere too long you for-get about what else is out there. I think the best way to learn about a place — you can always read in textbooks or see articles online — but you never really get to know a place until you visit there and see it for yourself and live and breathe in that new place,” she said.

Ly said every time she said something in Chinese correctly or understood her teachers or family, she would feel a burst of excite-ment.

After her return, she decided to switch her language focus to Chi-nese. She was receiving private tutoring with one of ASMSA’s Chi-nese instructors.

“I just wanted to maintain all the knowledge I had gained. If I didn’t use it, I would lose it,” she said.

Tyler Kee

Growing up in a Jewish house-hold, learning Hebrew was an in-terest for Kee so that he could read religious texts. Once he was able to begin reading religious texts in Hebrew script three or four years ago, he also became interested in reading the corresponding Islam-ic texts.

While Hebrew and Arabic have some similarities among its words and alphabet, the differences were too great. He thought if he knew one of the languages, why not the other? Learning both could be beneficial to a future career as an intermediary or translator as well.

So when he had the opportunity to apply for the NSIL-Y program,

he chose Morocco, an Arabic-speaking nation on the north-western coast of Africa. That’s the home nation of one of the counsel-ors he had at the Yale Young Global Scholars program last summer. She served as the motivation to choose Morocco specifically.

While at the Yale program, he also made friends with several Arabic-speaking people from Pal-estine, Pakistan and Iran. He kept in touch with his friends via Skype, taking the opportunity to use those visits to practice his Arabic. Those visits also have allowed him to get a feeling for their values and what they consider most important.

Kee left for Rabat, Morocco toward the end of June. He will

be spending five hours a day in a school setting learning Arabic. He will live with a host family, but he wasn’t sure how much English the family would speak. Regardless of how much English they can speak, Kee was excited about the oppor-tunity to live with them.

“I think, in the long run, it will really enhance the experience and help solidify the information I’m learning in classes. That’s what it’s supposed to do. You’re supposed to use what you’ve learned in class and form coherent thoughts and communicate with them. It will be a continual test of that ability,” he said.

He said having the opportunity to travel internationally to learn the language is what he was most

excited about. No one in his family has traveled inter-nationally, he said. “Getting to go to Morocco and Af-rica was such an abstract idea. It will be life chang-ing,” he said.

Some people may question whether it is wise for an American

Jew to go by himself to a country that is 97 percent Muslim, consid-ering the state of world conflict at this time.

He said those concerns did arise, both personally and with his parents. Kee said, at first, he thought he didn’t think he would be accepted into the program be-cause of his heritage.

He said after her initial excite-ment settled, his mother had some of the same concerns as well. He assured her of all the safety pre-cautions and the policies put in place to ensure the safety of pro-gram participants.

“Now I think it’s just the natural mother being protective nerves,” he said.

‘I think, in the long run, it will really enhance the experience and help solidify the information I’m learning in classes. ... You’re supposed to use what you’ve learned in class and form coherent thoughts and communicate them. It will be a continual test of that ability.’

Tyler Kee (‘15), speaking about what he expects living in Morocco this summer as part of the NSLI-Y program

22

Darbe Powell (‘15) visited Japan as a member of a delegation of students participating in the Hot Springs Sister City student exchange program during the summer of 2014. ASMSA also had participants in the Sister City’s teacher exchange and business and community leader visits in 2014.

Exchange of ideasASMSA participates in Sister City programs

One of the advantages to ASMSA calling Hot Springs home is the city’s participation in the Sis-ter Cities International Program. Hot Springs and Hanamaki, Japan, formed a Sister City bond in Janu-ary 1993, the same year that the first group of stu-dents arrived at ASMSA.

Each year, delegations from Hanamaki and Hot Springs visit their respective Sister City to make new friends, share their culture and explore addi-tional ways for the communities to partner for artis-tic, professional and economic development. Three separate groups make a trip from Hot Springs to Hanamaki each year. One is a group of students, an-other a group of educators and the third a group of business and community leaders.

During 2014, ASMSA had the privilege to send one person on each of the trips. Darbe Powell (’15) went on the student trip. Dr. Lindsey Waddell, a chemistry and geology instructor, participated in the teacher exchange while Director Corey Alderdice traveled to Hanamaki as part of the business and community

group.Powell was in middle school when one of the Jap-

anese delegations of students visited her school in Hot Springs. She knew then she wanted to go to Ja-pan as part of a delegation someday.

The student delegation spent more than five months preparing for the trip, Powell said. Each month, the students learned how to prepare for the trip, what to expect from their host families, what to expect at the schools they’d visit, what kind of gifts to bring and how to introduce themselves in Japa-nese.

The only Japanese Powell knew was how to intro-duce herself. Her host family didn’t know any English. They found a way to communicate, however, enough so that she could understand the stories the grandfa-ther of the host family told about working on a farm.

“There were about 30 kinds of grapes they grew in their backyard (which was several acres large). It was really interesting,” she said.

She did get to interact with one person who spoke

23

English fairly well — a friend of one of her host sisters. The family held a barbecue. Powell’s host sis-ter invited a couple of friends to the barbecue. One of the friends was the top student in their Eng-lish class.

“She was asking me all these questions in English. She was do-ing quite well. Sometimes I’d an-swer with vocabulary they didn’t know,” she said.

The best part of the trip for Powell was making friends in the delegation and with people she met in Japan. She has kept in touch with the older host sister using a texting application that translates for them, she said.

Mary Neilson, Hot Springs’ Sis-ter City Program Coordinator, said

that developing such relationships is one of the goals of the program.

“In spite of our obvious differ-ences — in languages, culture, re-ligion, we find the commonalities. That’s what all global learning has to offer. It opens doors to other opportunities. The world is not a big scary place, but a big friendly place,” Neilson said.

Waddell said one of the goals of the teacher trip is to find a way to connect students from both cities, to find common interests in edu-cation. Waddell said the teacher delegation toured many schools on their trip. Included in her del-egation were two Hot Springs School District teachers and an assistant superintendent from the Lakeside School District.

She said the level of interactive learning in the Japanese class-rooms surprised the delegation members. There was a lot of group work and interaction between the students themselves as well as with the instructors. Teachers moved from classroom to class-room rather than the students swapping classrooms, she said.

In the upper grades, very spe-cialized classes were offered. Some were very strict college prep classes while others focused on student athletes. There were also environmental tracts and ag-ricultural tracts students could take that prepared them careers.

Waddell’s experience on the trip led a different approach in prepar-ing for the annual visits to ASMSA

ASMSA instructor Dr. Lindsey Waddell, center, eats lunch with students at a junior high school in Japan during her trip to the country with a delegation of Hot Springs educators. The trip was part of the Hot Springs Sister City exchange program with Hanamaki, Japan.

24

by a group from Tennoji High School in Osaka, Japan. In the past, the visiting Japanese students spent most of their time with ASMSA stu-dents during class and on tours of the school. This year, the students arrived on a weekend and spent time doing research, sampling and testing water from different points in Hot Springs National Park.

They also participated in a fish-ing tournament arranged through the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission as well as their an-nual visit to a crystal mine.

When the business and com-munity leader delegation arrived in September, it was festival sea-son in Hanamaki. Alderdice said it was very similar to a state fair atmosphere with games, food, pa-rades and other celebrations. The delegation was invited to walk in a parade with a group of Hanamaki city leaders.

“Southerners pride themselves on their acumen for hospital-ity, but I was not prepared for the genuine kindness and inclusivity afforded the group by our friends in Hanamaki,” Alderdice said.

The business and community leader delegation also visited sev-eral schools. Alderdice said one of the schools was Hanamaki Kita High School, one of the top academic schools in the area. The visit provid-ed an opportunity to begin building a relationship with the school.

Alderdice said it is his hope that ASMSA may send a delegation of students and teachers to Japan as part of the school’s Global Learn-ing Program. He cited the success of the Tennoji High School visits as well as the longstanding rela-

tionship between Hanamaki and Hot Springs as the basis for that hope. Having the opportunity for ASMSA students, faculty and staff participate in the Sister Cities program an important component of the school’s growing Global Learning Program, he said.

“While ASMSA is a program that benefits all of Arkansas, it's incredibly important that we are constantly reminded that Hot Springs fought hard to earn the right to be the host city for the school and that this community

offers a wealth of experiences, programs and opportunities that distinguish it from other commu-nities in the state,” Alderdice said.

“The Hot Springs-Hanamaki Sister City Program is as old as ASMSA and is very much a part of the cultural and educational fabric of the community. Lend-ing our enthusiasm and support to the program not only helps us achieve our goals of study abroad and global learning for students and staff but also helps brings the world to ASMSA.”

‘In spite of our obvious differences — in languages, culture, religion, we find the commonalities. That’s what all global learning has to offer. It opens doors to other opportunities.’

Mary Neilson,Hot Springs’ Sister City Program Coordinator,

on why such programs are important

ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice, right, presents an artist’s rendering of the Student Center to Shin Arihara, principal of Hanamaki Kita High School. Alderdice traveled to Hanamaki as part of a business and community delegation representing the Hot Springs Sister City Program. He said the hope is for ASMSA to develop a student exchange program with the school in the near future.

25

Three alumni are finding ways to make our world a bit smaller. One works for the Department of State focusing on Arabic issues. Another built a school in Uganda. A third is learning how to bring a Japanese

industry to Hot Springs. Each has found their niche in the world.

Going Global

hannah draper (‘03), middle, escorts U.S. Sen. John McCain during elections in Libya in 2012. draper was serving as a foreign service officer in the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time.

hannah draper (’03) readily describes herself as “a little bit of a contrarian.”

That could be as regards to her choice to legally change her name to all lower caps after a principal at her junior high school in West Memphis told her she couldn’t list it that way in the yearbook.

It’s also one of the reasons why she decided she wanted to learn Arabic. She initially attend-ed Washington University in St. Louis with intentions of majoring in economics as well as learning Arabic. She enjoyed the Arabic classes so much that she swapped her major to Islamic history, earn-

ing both her bachelor’s and mas-ter’s degree in the topic.

“I wanted to do something that literally no one back home would know anything about,” draper said.

And while she had wanted to learn Arabic before, watching the events of Sept. 11, 2001, unfold while sitting in the cafeteria at ASMSA reinforced her desire to learn the language and perform government service.

“There’s a whole generation of people who learned Arabic after 9/11 with the goal of going into government service in some va-riety or another. I’m part of that generation,” she said.

draper knew she wanted to use her education to perform govern-ment service but wasn’t sure in what area. Dr. Don Baker, a former humanities instructor at ASMSA, had become a foreign service offi-cer the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service. He encouraged her to apply to become a foreign service officer as well.

After graduating from Wash-ington in 2007, she applied for several federal government jobs, including the Foreign Service. She received a spot at the State Department, and her first assign-ment was serving just over a year as a consular officer in the U.S.

Middle East issues focus of alumna’s State Dept. job

26

Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Ara-bia. She followed that with a two-year tour in the Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey, and a year in the embassy in Tripoli, Libya. She now serves as the Lebanon Desk Officer at the State Department in Washington, D.C.

draper was a political officer in the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli in Sep-tember 2012 when U.S. Ambas-sador J. Christopher Stevens and three others were killed during an attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi.

She was in Arkansas at the time of the attack attending a friend’s wedding. While she said the emo-tions of the situation were still too raw to discuss the attack and the loss of life of friends and col-leagues, she said her reaction at that time was to try to get back into the country and to the em-bassy as soon as possible.

“What I can say is that every single one of us at that embassy — we were all fighting tooth and nail to get back in there. Because when something like that happens, what you want to do is in this line of work — es-pecially working in Libya with the incredible team of people we had there — what you want to do is go back in and keep the vision alive. You feel a duty to go back and keep working,” she said.

draper said that foreign ser-vice officers tend to want to go to places where they can make a dif-ference. She said they were able to make a difference in Libya, even after Benghazi.

“The goal is — the difference between the military and diplo-mats — we’re supposed to go in so the military doesn’t have to go in. We’re supposed to be out on the front lines to prevent the military

having to go in. That loss of life is something we take very seriously,” she said.

Despite the tragic event that took place while she was assigned to the Tripoli post, she said her time in Libya was “one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever had.” She said working in a country that was in need of assistance and curious about representative democracy was exciting.

She shared a story about U.S. election night in 2012. Libya is seven hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast. She was sitting with a group of about 15 Libyan college students and young professionals, explaining how the Electoral Col-lege works.

“They asked questions. How do you determine this? How do you

determine that? How do political parties negotiate and determine who is going to take over com-mittees in Congress? At the time, Libya had no concept of that,” she said.

“It was absolutely fascinat-ing to sit there and watch Ameri-can election results come in and talk to people who had just gone through a very brutal and bloody revolution after 42 years of dicta-torship and sit there and discuss the very basic fundamentals of our democracy. Despite every-thing that happened in Benghazi — I was there before and after — it was one of the most amazing ex-periences in my life.”

Being a foreign service officer has provided draper many unique opportunities to experience life-

changing events of people in oth-er nations.

While serving in Istanbul, she focused on religious freedom. Turkey, an Islamic-dominant na-tion, is the home of many small Christian communities and also serves as the center of the Or-thodox Christian community. She was able to attend religious cer-emonies at two historic, ruined sites, one 1,700 years old and an-other 1,600 years old. It was the first Christian worship services were held at the sites in almost a century. Pilgrims from around the world attended the services.

In June 2012, she witnessed the first elections held in Libya since the 1950s. She witnessed the en-tire country celebrate the elec-tions. draper traveled to polling

sites with U.S. Sen. John Mc-Cain, who came to observe the elections and re-ceived an enthu-siastic reception.

“Seeing little grannies who couldn’t walk, but she’d sit in a

chair and five dudes would carry her up to the polling station. This was the first time women had been allowed to vote. It was the second election ever. Seeing that level of excitement, there’s nothing like it,” she said.

Another good memory from her time is meeting her husband in Istanbul. He had been living in Turkey about two years when she met him. They were married six weeks before her tour in Istanbul ended.

“That’s the running joke in the family that I had to go to all the way to Istanbul to meet a boy from south Louisiana,” she said, laugh-ing.

draper will continue working and living in Washington when she

See draper, Page 29

‘What I can say is that every single one of us at that embassy — we were all fighting tooth and nail to get back in there. ... You feel a duty to go back and keep working.’

hannah draper (‘03), on the reaction of American foreign service officers assisgned to Libyan embassy

after the Benghazi attack in September 2012

27

Ben Bell (’02) has worked in the spirits business for more than a decade. He has two profession-al certifications in wine, one in spirits and one

in beer. He used that knowledge to help educate cus-tomers at a wine and spirits store as well as a popular dining establishment in Little Rock.

One day a friend introduced him to the idea of home brewing sake — a drink made from rice that

is brewed primarily in Japan. The friend asked Bell if he had any interest in brewing his own sake. Bell said he thought it would be fun to try, especially since Ar-kansas is known for growing rice. The batch wasn’t very good, he said, but Bell was hooked on the idea of learning the proper way to brew sake.Bell began attending sake events

in New York, Chicago and other cities across the United States, learning as much as he could. About three years ago, he decided he wanted to learn how to make sake in Japan.

He contacted a master brewer about a job in a brewery. The brewer was interested, but asked for him to come for an interview. He flew to Japan, but within the first 10 minutes of entering the brewery, he was told he wouldn’t be allowed to work there be-cause he did not speak Japanese.

Bell returned to the U.S., but he didn’t give up on his dream of brewing sake. He earned a professional certification in sake via a test by the Sake Education Council in New York. He began preparing for his sec-ond trip to Japan, where he would take the advanced sake professional test. The test features one week of prep and one week of testing. It is only offered once a year. He both completed and passed the test in To-kyo and then worked two weeks at the brewery he visited on his first trip.

But he wasn’t done. He still wanted to work full time in a brewery in Japan so he could learn the art of sake brewing and bring it back to Arkansas. It’s rare for foreigners to work at a Japanese sake brew-ery so getting his foot in the door was hard. A visit to an ASMSA alumni event in 2013 provided him a unique opportunity to make a connection with one of

the most respected sake breweries in Japan.At the alumni event, Bell learned about Hot

Springs’ Sister City connection with Hanamaki, Ja-pan. He later visited with Mary Neilson, Hot Springs’

Ben Bell (‘02) stirs a batch of rice with a kaibo at the Nanbu Bijin Brewery in Ninohe, Japan. Bell will soon begin his second brewing season at the brewery, where he is learning how to make sake. He hopes to open a sake brewery in Hot Springs after he gains more experience in Japan.

For goodness sakeBrewing popular Japanese drink goal for Bell

Bell

28

Sister City Program Coordinator. He expressed interest in return-ing to Hot Springs to open a sake brewery after receiving training at a Japanese brewery.

One of the oldest and most re-spected breweries in Japan is lo-cated in the same prefecture as Hanamaki. Neilson reached out to a friend at the Hanamaki Inter-national Exchange Association to find a brewery that might be will-ing to allow Bell to work there.

Neilson’s efforts were success-ful, and Bell soon had a job at the Nanbu Bijin Brewery in Ninohe, Iwate Prefecture. The plan was for Bell to spend a year in Japan being introduced to the sake brewing process by working in the brew-ery.

Once Bell made it to Japan to work in the brewery, he was met with two major challenges — lack of language skills and the physi-cality of the job.

Bell had been studying Japa-nese on his own, but he quickly realized he didn’t know enough. There were one or two other work-ers who could speak a little bit of English. Essentially, he was living and working in a place where he didn’t know the language.

“You kind of need a different level to be able to ask questions, such as why do we do things this way. At first I didn’t understand ‘Wait here,’ which drove people nuts,” he said.

The physical strength required in the job may surprise some as well. While the sake industry has become industrialized in some re-spect in a few breweries, the Nan-bu Bijin Brewery still uses many of the traditional methods of brewing sake that includes workers mixing the rice with long sticks called ka-ibo or with their hands. During the two-week stint Bell did at the first brewery, he suffered a permanent injury to his back. That meant he had to learn a new way to do the heavy work in his new job.

The brewing season tradition-ally lasts several months during Japan’s winter. After his first full season in 2014, Bell said he has adjusted to both the physical and language demands of the brewery.

“I have learned a ton on the job at Nanbu Bijin, but I would say the biggest developments have been with my conditioning and language skills,” Bell said. “Mak-ing sake in Japan is a unique chal-lenge of understanding the sake-making process while also doing physically demanding work.

“And all the while, I am learning and receiving instructions in a dif-ficult foreign language. That led to a fair amount of exhaustion and stress, but now I’m stronger and can speak and understand Japa-nese enough to relax a bit. That’s a nice feeling.”

Bell decided one season at the brewery was not enough. He asked if he could stay another season. He still attends meetings every morning at the brewery and

is working for a nearby farming co-op that produces the rice for the brewery. He has worked on each step of raising the rice, in-cluding the seed germination and the planting in the fields.

Working at the farm provides him the opportunity to learn more about growing the specific rice needed for Japanese sake, some-thing he hopes to encourage Ar-kansas farmers to grow. Currently only one farmer specializes in growing the rice in the state.

He said he has also asked to be considered for a third year at the brewery. The additional years will provide him the opportunity to be-come fluent in the language, which he will need to stay in communica-tion with Japanese brewers once he moves back to Arkansas, as well as better exploring the brew-ing process. The decision to delay returning home was tough, he said.

“Choosing to stay was the hard-est decision I’ve ever made. Liv-ing away from home and doing

Ben Bell (‘02), front row left, made a connection to the Nanbu Bijin Brewery through the Hot Springs Sister City Program. In the photo clockwise are Bell; Fumiaki Sasaki, president of the Hanamaki International Exchange Association; Mary Neilson, Hot Springs Sister City coordinator; Monte Everhart, owner of American Tire and Wheel in Hot Springs; and Kosuke Kuji, president of Nanbu Bijin Brewery.

moves to her new post this summer working on Iraqi refugee issues. Moving back to the U.S. after serving in several foreign posts took some adjustment. She said that everyone who serves in foreign service has a “culture shock” moment when they return.

“For me, it was standing in the cereal aisle and won-dering why there were so many types of cereal. For a friend of mine, she was standing in front of canned tomatoes and wondering why there were so many dif-ferent canned tomatoes. Why were there so many dif-ferent varieties? Why couldn’t she just have one type? But it goes both ways. Everyone who comes back goes to Target, Chipotle and Starbucks,” she said.

draper’s foreign posts have helped her develop her world perspective. “My concept of distance has changed. Your concept of how big the world is really shrinks. It’s very nice how my world has shrunk. It’s

gotten a lot bigger but it’s also a lot smaller concep-tually, too,” she said.

While at ASMSA, draper took advantage of max-ing out the number of humanities courses she could take. That worked well for her future, but she said for those who want to work in foreign or civil service, there are many opportunities to develop skills in all kinds of areas, including STEM, that the government can use.

Whether it’s doctors preparing for medical emer-gencies, lawyers working on policy or treaty issues or scientists doing work in chemistry or biology, there are foreign service opportunities, she said.

“Interestingly enough, we have an entire bureau where we have a bunch of Ph.Ds in physics and chemistry and they work on nonproliferation issues. We have a whole bureau of rocket scientists essen-tially. You don’t normally think of people working in foreign affairs with that background,” she said.

29

difficult work without fluency is very stressful. … Making sake and bringing this craft to Arkansas has been my dream for years. Even be-fore that, I always wanted to work on something big and interesting and challenging. And now other people are counting on me as well. So for me and for them, it’s my re-sponsibility to see this through,” he said.

There’s been one unexpected development from Bell working at the brewery — he has become a media star of sorts. The rarity of an American working in a sake brewery made Bell a natural mag-net for local media. He said he has done three interviews for Japan’s largest newspapers and about 10 television and radio interviews. He is also heavily featured in a documentary about Nanbu Bijin.

“All of that has been it’s own unique challenge and learning ex-perience to me. If you think learn-ing new techniques under a re-nowned master brewer is hard, try it with two TV cameras pointed at your every move!” he said.

One day after an hour of mix-ing 1,500 pounds of rice, he was greeted by a camera crew and a famous Japanese model/actress for an interview.

“I was so exhausted and had to completely change gears into an-swering questions about my life in Japan from a famous person. That was early on, and I remem-ber thinking, ‘Is this my life now?’” he said.

Bell also has produced a batch of sake that has his name as the brewer. It was the idea of Koji Ku-suke, president of the brewery. Kusuke thought it would be a good

idea for Bell to produce the batch as part of the documentary. It will be sold in Japan this summer.

“It was also the absolute best way to understand the entire pro-cess from beginning to end. Many of the steps I did for that batch were new to me. And the final product turned out great, so it was a wonderful experience. And I’ll be doing it again next season,” he said.

A bottle of sake brewed by Ben Bell (‘02) at Nanbu Bijin Brewery was served during a recent Hanamaki Rotary Club meeting. The president of the brewery encouraged Bell to brew a test batch of sake as a learning experience.

draper Continued from Page 26

30

Rebecca Sorensen (‘02), right, poses for a photo with some of the children who attend Royal Hope Academy, the school she helped create in 2009 in Busega, Uganda. The school started with 30 students and has grown to more than 400 students.

When Rebecca Sorensen (’02) decided to build a day school in the Busega

neighborhood of Kampala, Ugan-da, she didn’t have many resourc-es on which to rely.

She had $300 and a group of volunteers she had met during a previous mission trip ready to construct a five-classroom build-ing that would serve as a place or-phaned and abandoned children could receive an education. The building was made of timber and dirt floors and a roof from grass. Looking at a photo of the original building featured on the Face-book page of My Father’s House Uganda, the ministry started by Sorensen that runs the school, it resembles a small stable rather than a classroom.

“It was built in an ‘African’ style,” Sorensen said. “It literally cost $300.”

But the cost of the school, called the Royal Hope Academy, didn’t matter to the children who decided to come to the classes.

On the first day of school, on Feb. 9, 2009, 30 children showed up. Within three months, there were 150 children coming to the school. By the end of the next year, there were 250 children attending the school. Not only were they taking classes, but the school also pro-vided a lunch.

“It was expensive. Looking back at that time, I have no idea how we did that. People would give, but there was no consistent support. It was just random,” she said.

She was 24 at the time. “So young and naïve,” she said. While it was a stressful time, Sorensen said it was also exciting. To see the school blossom in a commu-nity slum area where many of the children lived on the streets or the dumps or lived with a mother who was sick.

Sorensen was inspired to cre-ate the school after she witnessed a group of children in school uni-forms who were happy and full of life walking down one side of a street in Busega. On the other side

of the street were children, some of them naked, in a garbage dump, picking through the trash search-ing for scraps of metal they could sell to get something to eat.

“They literally were just living their day-to-day life. Seeing that disparity, I thought something needs to change,” she said.

That led to her speaking to village leaders who agreed the school was a need. “School is real-ly expensive there. We were offer-ing free education. There’s a huge need for that,” she said.

By the end of 2010, the school expanded to 10 classrooms on a different piece of land. Today, the academy educates 400 students. There is also a nursery and two homes in which some of the stu-dents live.

Besides mission work, Sorensen also has been interested in music. After graduating from ASMSA, she attended Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., where she be-came involved in songwriting and music. Performing was something

School combines alumna’s passions

31

she always enjoyed, including performing at ASMSA’s Dolphin-Stock and Coffeehouse events as well as developing a fundraising concert in downtown Hot Springs her senior year.

Sorensen has used her love of music as an educational and mis-sion tool at the Uganda school. In 2009, she created the Royal Hope Choir, comprised of students from the school. The choir recorded an album of African praise and wor-ship.

“It’s wonderful when I get to do anything to combine mission work and music — both of my passions coming together,” she said.

Sorensen began her mission career in Uganda by accident. She had been accepted for a mis-sionary school in Mozambique in 2007, but she chose to go on a mission trip to Kenya that was sponsored by an ASMSA faculty member from that nation instead. When that trip fell through, how-

ever, she was invited by a differ-ent group, including a couple from Hot Springs that she knew, to go on a trip to Uganda instead.

She was in northern Uganda for five weeks, visiting refugee camps and working at a resettlement project. She stayed in a ministry house in Busega, the same house in which she lived while starting Royal Hope Academy. She re-turned to Uganda the following Christmas with 20 suitcases of items for children that she col-lected in Nashville during a break between trips. She later attended the missionary school in Mozam-bique and did an outreach in Si-erra Leone, but then went back to Uganada.

During her first trip, she was the only American working in the project she had joined. She quickly became immersed in the culture, beginning to learn the language. That experience as well as the missionary school she attended

helped her realize that for her mis-sion work to truly be successful that she would need to approach it with an attitude of acceptance.

“I had to learn that just because someone does something differ-ent does not mean it is wrong. You must learn why they do things the way they do,” she said.

Sorensen also expanded her mission work to include women in the community through Digni-ty Designs. Her ministry partners with widows and other women to make jewelry and bags made out of paper. The ministry buys the items from the women and resells them. The women are able to help support themselves, and prof-its from the ministry selling the items goes back to the school and homes for the children.

“These women have really be-come friends of mine. I encourage them, and they encourage me. I’ve seen lots of good progress in their lives,” she said.

Royal Hope Academy was created to provide children, many of whom lived on the streets or in the dump, the opportunity to have an education. Some of the children also live in group homes that are part of the academy.

32

End Note

Editor’s note: Eric Jackson, general manager of Oaklawn Park, was the featured speaker at the commencement ceremony for the Class of 2015 on May 23. This is an excerpt from his speech. To view his full remarks, visit https://vimeo.com/armathsciarts/ericjackson.

I realized that this school has a lot in common with what I do for a living — horse racing.

Now my guess is you have never been compared to a horse before, so let me explain.

When you strip everything else away from horse racing, horse racing is simply about three things:

— Identifying potential;— Creating an environment where

that potential can be developed;— And at some point — if every-

thing comes together and you get a break or two — celebrating success.

It seems to me that’s what this school is about:

— Identifying potential, whether it’s in Newport or Barton or anywhere else in Arkansas;

— Creating an unbelievable learn-ing environment where potential can be best developed;

— And as has been the case with so many people who came out of the first 20 graduating classes — cel-ebrating success.

There are more parallels.

About 30,000 racehorses are born every year in America. Every year in Arkansas about 30,000 students graduate from high school.

Out of those 30,000 racehorses, about 100 eventually rise to the top — becoming the best, the fastest, the most determined.

Out of those 30,000 high school seniors, a tiny number will also rise to the top. I don’t know exactly how many. I know there aren’t many. And I also know 102 of them are sitting in this room right now.

In racing, there are about 40,000 races each year around the coun-try. The very top races are awarded what’s called a Grade I status. It’s only a handful. The Arkansas Derby is one. The Kentucky Derby is another. There aren’t many.

Coincidentally, there are about 40,000 high schools in this country. The very best are awarded the equiv-alent of Grade I status. There are only a few. No surprise, this math and sci-ence school is on the list. And by at least one measure — out of the thou-sands of high schools in the United States — this is in the top 10.

In horse racing, there isn’t any question — the only way you are among those top 100 horses is if you are fast. But it takes more than just being fast. You’ve got to have a good support team. You have to be in the right place at the right time. You need

some good things to go your way.The support team is critical. The

horse has to have good people around it to develop to its potential. It’s said that by the time a horse gets to the races, some 81 people have had a hand in its development. Trainers, jockey, exercise riders, farriers, veterinarians, massage therapists, acupuncturists, nutritionists — the list goes on.

I don’t know how many people had a hand in the 102 graduates here, but I would not be surprised if that num-ber is at least 81. Parents, teachers on all levels, counselors, possibly coach-es, ministers, neighbors, community role models, even other family mem-bers — the list goes on.

In horse racing, it also helps to be in the right place. You can be the fastest horse in the United States, but if you are on a farm in Montana, you won’t get near the recognition as if you were at a top training center in Kentucky.

Same here. This is not a dispar-aging statement. But no matter how smart you are, graduating from high school in Barton or Newport or Ben-ton or Fordyce or Lonoke or anywhere else simply isn’t the same as gradu-ating from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts.

…If you really were racehorses,

you’d be the heavy favorites. So the question is not if you’ll be successful; the question is when and where.

‘So the question is not if you’ll be successful; the

question is when and where.’Eric Jackson, general manager of Oaklawn Park,

speaking to the Class of 2015 during commencement

Name

Address City

Home phone Work phone

E-mail

Company (Please include a form if your company has a matching program.)

Amount enclosed $

Charge to Visa MasterCard AmEx

Acct# Exp. Date

Signature

Make a gift to The ASMSA Foundation in support of computer science education!

T H E A S M S A F O U N D A T I O N

Send to The ASMSA Foundation FundAttn: Vicki Hinz200 Whittington Ave.Hot Springs, AR 71901

ASMSA’s Greatest Need

Residential Student Excellence

Computer Science Fund

Coding Arkansas’ Future

Summer Research Fellowship

Make checks payable to University of Arkansas Foundation, Inc.

Learn more and give online at asmsafoundationfund.givezooks.com.

Inspiration Meets Innovation

Final Frame

200 Whittington Avenue, Hot Springs, AR 71901

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts

Alex Ladd (’16) enjoys a conversation with friends during a meal on the patio of the Student Center. While great discussions happen in classes across campus, some of the most meaningful conversations are had at meals, during students’ down time and throughout the residential experience.