TAMUT – News

A&M-Texarkana to Hold 30th Young Writers’ Summer Workshop.

TEXARKANA, Texas – Texas A&M University-Texarkana will be holding its 30th Annual Young Writers’ Workshop from July 15-26 on the university’s Bringle Lake Campus. The camp is a collaborative effort between the East Texas Writing Project and A&M-Texarkana’s English Program and is open to students going into grades 1-12.

The two-week program takes place from 8:30 am – 12:00 pm each weekday, and participants spend their time engaged in reading, writing, and artistic activities designed to develop and deepen their understanding of genres and themes often left underexplored in traditional classrooms. Age appropriate themes and styles are selected for each grade level. This year’s topics include A World of Holidays (1st and 2nd grades), Celebration Station (3rd and 4th grades), Memorable Moments (5th and 6th grades), My Favorite Things (7th and 8th grades), and Blasting to the Future (9th -12th grades).
Participants have a chance to show off their work during the workshop’s closing ceremony and have the opportunity to have their work published in the program’s annual anthology. The cost for the Young Writers’ Workshop is $40 per student and registration is open now at https://www.tamut.edu/young-writers/.

The Young Writers’ Program is sponsored by:
• Arkansas Community Foundation/Texarkana Area Community Foundation.
• Kiwanis Club of Texarkana
• Bobbie Arnold Atkinson Foundation
For more information about the program, contact Dr. Corrine Hinton, Assistant Professor of English at 903.223.3124 or Corrine.Hinton@tamut.edu.

A&M-Texarkana Chemistry Professor Has Research Published.

TEXARKANA, Texas – Texas A&M University-Texarkana, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dr. Greg Hogan, was recently published in the Journal of Molecular Structure. His article, “Inclusion of alkyl alcohol guest molecules into a copper (II)-based hydrogen-bonded metal-organic framework” is derived from his research involving flexible, thermally stable hydrogen-bonded frameworks.

These frameworks allow for the introduction of guest molecules, but because they are thermally stable, the guest molecule can be removed, keeping the host framework intact. While the research is being completed at the molecular level, on a larger scale, these compounds could eventually play a role in mitigating the environmental damage caused when oil or toxic chemicals are spilled. In theory, the frameworks developed within the compounds could capture or trap the guest molecules and enable them to be released without damaging the host framework, which could then be reused.

The full article is available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022286019307367?fbclid=IwAR0M-7OSf1exG4x-xCCiEosfpfwMUHl_781CpWLeMAtHUQm6BDzykvksybA.
Dr. Hogan was assisted in his research by students Gavin J. Beach, Betrand N. Besong, and Chemistry Lab Coordinator Christina Hogan.

A&M-Texarkana Professors Collaborate on Research
and Article Published in Health Marketing Journal.

TEXARKANA, Texas – Texas A&M University-Texarkana Assistant Professor of Management Dr. Brian Matthews and Jamie Daigle, Instructor of Supply Chain management were recently published in the journal Health Marketing Quarterly. Their article, “Bridging the dichotomous gap between expectations and perceptions in quantifying hospice care quality,” stems from research conducted into the customer satisfaction of families who had relatives in hospice care.

Matthews used a five-dimensional service quality instrument called the SERVQUAL model to rate customer satisfaction in five areas: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Daigle then used a neural network approach to examine facts and research variables to develop algorithms that helped quantify, understand, and add validity to the responses. The process allowed the researchers to rate the customer’s expectations vs. perceptions…comparing what customers believed to be the prescribed norms of hospice care with how they rated their actual experience.

The full article can be viewed at this location: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07359683.2019.1618010.

A&M-Texarkana Education Professor Published in
Journal of Culture and Values in Education.

TEXARKANA, Texas – Dr. Abbie Strunc, Texas A&M University-Texarkana Assistant Professor of Education and Chair of Teacher Education was recently published in the Journal of Culture and Values in Education. Her article, “The Politics of Culture: A Discourse Analysis of the Texas Social Studies Curriculum,” examines the history of the education curriculum in Texas.

In her work, Strunc outlines how outside agencies like Educational Research Analysis (ERA) can affect changes to the state’s education mandates. This includes decisions by the State Board of Education on subjects such as curriculum standards, approving instructional materials, controlling high school graduation standards, and other administrative duties. The input from agencies from like the ERA and the political nature of the process (Texas State Board of Education members are elected) can cause noticeable shifts in the curriculum from one revision period to the next.

Dr. Strunc’s full work can be viewed on the Journal of Culture and Values in Education website: http://cultureandvalues.org/index.php/JCV/article/view/26/17.

 

A&M-Texarkana’s Matt Barrett Named RRAC Character Athlete of the Year.

TEXARKANA, Texas – The Red River Athletic Conference announced today that Heidi George of Jarvis Christian College (Texas) and Matthew Barrett of Texas A&M University-Texarkana were selected as the 2018-19 RRAC Betty Etier Character Athletes of the Year.

In its third year, the award is given annually to one male and one female RRAC student-athlete who best represent the tenets of the NAIA Champions of Character program (respect, responsibility, integrity, sportsmanship and servant leadership).
A student-athlete must have been recognized as an RRAC Character Athlete of the Week during the previous academic year. All 2018-19 weekly selections were candidates in voting by the RRAC Champions of Character Committee.

The awards were posthumously named for Betty Etier, who was an NAIA Hall of Famer, RRAC Eligibility Chair for 18 years, and an associate professor and faculty athletics representative at Huston-Tillotson University (Texas). Etier made a lasting impression on everyone involved in the RRAC and helped shape the conference from its beginnings.

Matthew Barrett just completed his final year of eligibility as an outfielder on the A&M-Texarkana baseball team. Barrett, a product of Damonte Ranch High School in Reno, Nev., has managed to balance the demands of being a student-athlete, completing an internship, and serving his campus and community. In addition to his time in the classroom and on the diamond, Matthew completed a full-time course with Smith-Blair Corporation and held a high seat as a Student Ambassador, assisting the university with campus and community events and fundraisers. His other contributions include distributing shoes to children in the community, working on a home build for Habitat for Humanity, volunteering for Race for the Cure, and assisting with security for the Live United Bowl. Barrett is an Electrical Engineering major with a 3.30 GPA and plans on pursuing a career in robotic prosthetics to help wounded veterans.

“I think it is a tremendous achievement for Matthew to be recognized as the 2019 Character Athlete of the Year for the Red River Athletic Conference,” said TAMUT head baseball coach Steve Jones. “It makes me very proud as a coach to see a student-athlete of Matthew’s character being rewarded for everything that he brought to our program, the conference, and the community. This award exemplifies how exceptional Matthew Barrett is and what an ambassador he has been for TAMUT athletics, our university, and the entire Texarkana area.”