Message from the Dean

Academic Excellence, Community, and Leadership – words by which our students truly live.  Once again Honors College students are ranked among the nation’s best.

We are thrilled to announce that Cynthia “CC” Dubois and Jacquelyn Zimmerman have both been named to the 2007 USA Today All-USA College Academic teams. Students chosen for this award have not only excelled in their academic work, but must also demonstrate a commitment to their communities.  

Jackie and CC are not alone in the Honors College. They represent some of the many wonderful successes of our students in all aspects of our program.  Students have established service organizations like FOCUS and organized service projects in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  Honors students have already raked in numerous prestigious fellowships in the past five years, including six Goldwaters, three Trumans and LSU’s first-ever Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship.  And of many LSU’s student leaders are in the Honors College.

These students are helping the Honors College lead the charge into the future of LSU, which is marked by planned renovations to the Laville residence halls, the Forever LSU capital campaign and the newly established relationship between the Honors College and the LSU Law School through the LEAP program.

The future is looking brighter than ever and we are proud to be an integral part of it. Best wishes for this spring semester!

Dean Nancy Clark

Two Honors Seniors Receive Nationwide Distinction

LSU's Truman Scholar and one of LSU's Goldwater Scholars have received the latest recognition in their illustrious collegiate careers.

Honors students Cynthia "CC" Dubois and Jacquelyn Zimmerman were two of just 60 college students nationwide named to the USA Today's 2007 All-USA College Academic Team.
Dubois was one of just 20 students in the nation named to the USA Today's 2007 All-USA College Academic First Team.  Zimmerman was named to the Third Team.

“This ranks right up there at the very top,” Dubois said about the honor.  “There were over 600 applicants.  If you look at the schools and disciplines and peers, I definitely have to say it’s a good group to be in.”

“I was elated for both of them,” said Dr. Drew Lamonica Arms, Director of Fellowship Advising with the Honors College.  “They’ve worked so hard throughout their LSU careers.  It’s a very fitting capstone to their careers.”

Dubois, an agricultural business and political science senior, won the Harry S Truman Scholarship in 2006 and has maintained a 3.945 GPA in a double-major curriculum while demonstrating tremendous campus and community leadership.  She has served in the LSU student senate for three years and is a leader on several levels of the FFA national organization.  She is also an American Quarter Horse Youth Association roping and cutting world champion.

As part of the application process for the USA Today distinction, students must elaborate on what they feel is their most outstanding intellectual endeavor.  Dubois chose her “We’ve Got Your Back” campaign as her endeavor.  After Hurricane Katrina, Dubois spearheaded the service initiative to help displaced schoolchildren by providing them with backpacks fully-loaded with school supplies.  The initiative helped procure nearly 46,000 backpacks.

Zimmerman, a biological sciences senior, won the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship in 2006.  She has kept a 4.0 GPA and has also been an exemplary community leader, serving as a camp counselor and establishing the “Good Neighbors” program assisting caretakers of mentally handicapped adults.

Jackie has been published for her genetic research at LSU on primates, a profound achievement for an undergraduate.  She studied the insertion of Alu elements to identify genetic material in primates, a model by which similar processes could be used for other organisms using different elements. She listed this research as her outstanding intellectual endeavor.

“LSU’s done very well in the national fellowship competition in the last few years,” Zimmerman said.  “The students that come here are very high caliber.  I’ve gotten a lot more from here than I would have expected from any school.”

Dubois agreed.  “I think it’s a testament to the university and its ability to produce students who can compete at the level of any university in the nation,” she said.  “I think a lot of times we don’t get the recognition [LSU] deserves in being able to produce students that can compete on a national level with the Stanfords and the Harvards and the Yales and MITs."

To see her CC's feature in USA Today, click here. To see Zimmerman's feature in USA Today, click here. To read the story about both of them in The Advocate, click here.

Jackie Zimmerman was named to the 2007 All-USA College Academic Third Team, placing her among the Top 60 students in the nation.

Honors College Distinctions and Service

Honors students Andrew Frilot, left-middle, and Richie Sajan, were named the Honors College's first-ever Jenkins Scholars in 2006. They are congratulated here by Harry Longwell, left, whose donation funded the scholarship program, and LSU System President William Jenkins, for whom the award is named.

Honors sophomore Michael Rhea helps perform maintenance tasks at a building in New Orleans. The Honors College joined forces with Circle K, a student volunteer group, the Campaign for Change and Delta Sigma Phi fraternity for a joint service trip to New Orleans on Saturday, Feb. 10.


Media Credit: Jared P. L. Normand

The original intention of the service trip was to gut a damaged home in New Orleans, but the Honors College students, joined by Associate Dean Granger Babcock, Student Activity Coordinator Mark Dochterman and Coordinator of Student Services Michael Blandino, answered a greater need by doing heavy yardwork and maintenance.

Media Credit: Jared P. L. Normand

HNRS 3100: Leadership and Scholarship

One of LSU’s selling points in the Forever LSU campaign is the prowess of its students in competing for national fellowships, and the Honors College is a force behind this effort. Honors students have, in the past two years alone, won the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, four Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships and LSU’s first-ever Jack Kent Cooke Fellowship award. Much of this credit points back to the Honors College’s director of fellowship advising, Dr. Drew Lamonica Arms, a Rhodes Scholar herself in 1995.

This semester, Dr. Arms is taking her experience working on fellowships to the HNRS 3100 course, Leadership and Scholarship. Students taking the course are on track to apply for graduate school or major fellowships, and they will craft a personal statement—a major aspect of such applications.

The course is formatted as a seminar, in which the students focus on the classical thinkers on leadership, including Socrates, Machiavelli and Thomas Aquinas, as well as The Economist, a United Kingdom periodical. The students lead discussions of the readings, write focus papers and group presentations, outline their careers and complete their personal statements as a final project.

"It's a low-key, round-table setting," Honors student Smoot Carter said. "All of [the students] are proven academics at LSU, and we are able to debate on such fabrics as globalization and the economy."

Arms said the idea for the course came from watching students struggle in the scholarship interview processes, unable to answer questions in historical, social and economic terms. She brought her experience serving on scholarship committees and teaching Honors interdisciplinary courses Ancient Western and Medieval Civilizations to the course, and said her students are keeping up quite well.

"It's very enjoyable, even if you are not familiar with the material," Honors student Leslie Smith said. "My knowledge of philosophy has certainly increased."

Arms said the Honors College plans to offer the course each spring semester, a move designed to correlate with increased success in scholarship competitions. In related news, Arms confirmed that LSU has submitted three strong finalists for the 2007 Truman Scholarship and four strong finalists for the 2007 Goldwater Scholarship.

(From left) HNRS 3100 students Liz Dunn, Ashley Eldringhoff, Smoot Carter and Mark Ebarb discuss an upcoming reading assingment from the UK periodical The Economist.

Dr. Drew Lamonica Arms meets with HNRS 3100 student Mark Ebarb near the end of class to discuss some of his work.

LSU LEAP: Law Early Admission Program

The Honors College, in conjunction with the LSU Law Center, has announced the implementation of the LSU LEAP program – Law Early Admission Program – a new program for undergraduate Honors students interested in pursuing a law degree after graduation from LSU. The program will provide students with information about law school and about careers in the legal profession and will help prepare them for law school during their undergraduate years.

Freshman and sophomore Honors students in the LEAP program will work with LSU Law Center professors, will be invited to attend lectures given by outside speakers at the Law Center and will be invited to participate in the annual Moot Court Competition as witnesses and jurors.

During the spring semester of their sophomore years, students will be invited to apply for admission to the upper division part of the program. In their junior and senior years, students in the LEAP program will take Honors College courses designed especially for them, taught by LSU Law Center faculty. Career counseling sessions will inform students about various career tracks after graduation from law school.

Tiger Tracks: Catching up with Honors Alumni

The Honors College loves hearing back from its former students. Please send us an email to honorsalumni@lsu.edu with an update and a photograph. Please do check back in and tell us and your classmates about your successes and experiences!

Class of 1998

• Erin "Kate" Harrington graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School in 2003 and is currently a resident physician at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington D.C. She is pursuing certification in Anesthesiology with plans to complete a fellowship in Cardiovascular Anesthesia. She lives in Northern Virginia and, when not busy with work, friends, and pursuing her many interests, dreams of meeting a man who loves Abita Beer, crawfish boils, and LSU football (in reverse order of course).

Class of 2000

• Kevin E. Stuart is a Ph.D. student in the Government Dept. at the University of Texas-Austin in the Public Law and Political Theory fields.

Class of 2002

• Scott Crawford completed his theology studies at Princeton Seminary. He has returned to Scotland, where he previously worked for one year at a church, and is currently working as Assistant Minister at St. Columba Church in Ayr.