SRSU sent six representatives to the Great Plains Honors Council Conference this year March 25-27, 2010. SRSU’s Honors Program Director, Dr. Kathy Stein, accompanied program members LizBeth Cruz, Jessica Lien, Dianna Marin, Clare Ritzi, and Jim Tims to the conference held in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The conference organizers offered participants the chance to explore Tulsa’s downtown area through a number of walking tours. The conference itself consisted of poster sessions, concurrent sessions offered by students, faculty, and honors program administrators, and keynote speakers. The student presentations represented ongoing research projects completed as part of their honors commitment.
SRSU Honors Program members were charged with absorbing as much information as they could and to use the conference as an opportunity to identify presentation, interview, and research skills that they wish to hone as they prepare for senior projects, McNair projects, and professional school. In addition, the students were asked to determine what constituted a good program/poster versus a weaker program/poster with a mind towards presenting themselves next year.
On that note, in 2011, the Great Plains Honors Council Conference will be held in Arlington, TX and will be hosted by UT-Arlington. SRSU Honors Program members should start thinking now about submitting proposals in the hopes of being selected to present. In order to cover travel and conference costs, program members will be hosting a number of fund raising activities in the months to come.
Each of the attendees was asked to write a short piece about the aspect of the conference that they enjoyed the most or found to be the most interesting. As you see your peers on campus, you should feel free to query them about their conference experience. I’m sure they would love to share their impressions with you.

LizBeth Cruz: Great Plains Honors Conference
There were two presentations that stood out to me the most. “The Photoelectric Effect” was the one that caught my eye the most. This particular presentation interested me because of the scientific aspect. The theory of light went unexplained until Dr. Albert Einstein explained it through the idea of light and Planck’s’ Constant. His work explains that light is neither a particle nor a wave but that it has characteristics of both. The presenter did an experiment where she measured the constant of light. She had only a 0.33% error in her experiment, which is a pretty good error rate considering that this was a student experiment.

Jessica Lien: Favorite Activity of the Great Plains Honors Conference
It is difficult to choose one favorite activity from the Great Plains Honors Conference because there were many enjoyable and interesting activities. We were given a tour of downtown Tulsa which showed us local art and architecture, watched student present research on a great variety of subject matter, and enjoyed multi-course meals at which speakers enlightened us on subjects such as political cartoons, local museums, and influential historical figures.
But if a favorite must be selected, then I would choose the poster sessions as my favorite activity. Students had posters set up all around a room on tables and walls, and we were allowed to go about the room as we chose and the students would explain to us their projects and research. The topics were fascinating. They included studies in medical and scientific research, economics, political figures and voting trends, musical theory, impact of major characters or events in history, physical therapy tests, etc. I liked this event the best because, of course, the interesting nature of the topics researched. However, I was also inspired as I saw college peers take the initiative to think of these projects and then carry them out. It was also really neat to get to talk to them face-to-face and see their enthusiasm for the topics they researched and how their minds worked as they described the process they went through to select a topic, narrowed it down to a workable project, encountered problems, solved those problem, and revised plans as they carried out their actual research. It was fascinating to hear about the issues that came up that they hadn’t thought of when they were initially planning their research. I found all of this absolutely fascinating and felt encouraged to think in new ways about my own studies. Dianna Marin: Great Plains Honors Council Conference
I was honored to attend the Great Plains Honors Council Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 26 – 28, 2010. I cannot express how much I learned from this opportunity and greatly appreciate all those who assisted in us going.
There were several good workshops; however, in my opinion, “A Review of Basic Temporal and Spatial Gait Parameters in Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease,” presented by Neil B. Huben from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, was the best. His entire demeanor during his presentation demonstrated his confidence of the project and he had a solid knowledge of the topic.
This summer I will be participating in the McNair program and was unsure what was expected of me until attending this conference. I am confident through this experience I will represent Sul Ross State University well.

Clare Ritzi: “The Art of the Critique”
One of the most memorable presentations was titled the following: “Science and the Imagination: An interdisciplinary Approach to an Honors Course” presented by Dr. Mark R Hall and Dr. Andrew SID Land from Oral Roberts University.
This presentation switched back and forth between the two presenters in an almost equal ratio. The course they discussed was co-taught covering essentially science and cinema. They had an almost conversant tone while speaking. The presentation itself covered the syllabus for the class and roughly how the course was structured. Three class days a week they met. The first day was a hard science lecture, progressing to a film discussion the next, and ending with a viewing of the film the following week.
One of the most memorable posters was the following: “The Examination of Non de Plume on Characters: Nora Roberts/JD Robb” presented by Elizabeth Coffey and Abby Fisher from Emporia State University. The poster was reasonably well laid out with pictures of book covers lining the upper and lower edges and text in the middle. This poster was about half the size of a standard poster presentation. The more memorable portion was the presenters. They had both read almost everything written by Roberts/Robb and were willing to explain plot lines and major characters of “both” authors. They elaborated far beyond the information on their poster. Both speculated that the differences in writing styles and characters might carry over to other writers who use a non de plume.
The most memorable event of the conference for me was the plenary speaker, Bruce Plante. How often do you get to listen to a speaker who has, in fact, seen his work nationally recognized work? And then to be able to relate to it? Bruce Plante was an amazing speaker who played very well to his audience.

Jim Tims: Walking Tour of Boston Ave. Methodist Church
The tour started out with a drive through the Tulsa business district, showing off many old buildings within the art deco district. Although Tulsa is a relatively young town, many of its high rise buildings were built within the first twenty years of the oil boom (1907 - 1927). Tulsa's population went from 7,000 in 1907 up to 73,000 in 1920. The oil boom was considered much bigger than Saudi Arabia’s.
Many of the buildings were built by and named after Phil Towns. They all had the gargoyles and art deco architecture, which was typical to that era in the early twentieth century. Some of the structures which we passed on our way to the Boston Ave. Methodist Church, were the Philcade Bldg., First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist Church, the First Christian Church, the First Christian Science Church, and the Holy Family Catholic Cathedral. These were all very immaculate, steepled churches. Our guide informed us that the reason for the steep and tall steeples was to "gain access to heaven".
Just before arriving at our destination of the Boston Methodist Church, we passed the oldest school in Tulsa, Central High School. Although it's not a school anymore, it sure has the appearance of one. It is now an electric utility company. It has the typical look of schools in the 1920's: red brick trimmed in white stone.
We finally arrived at the Boston Ave. Methodist church. From the outside it did not even look like a church, but more like an office building. But then we went inside and, "voila," it turned into one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen. The church claims it was designed by Ada Robinson, however, government records show that Bruce Gough did the design. Further research reveals that they most likely were in concert in the design as Robinson was a student of Gough’s. Some of the ornate designs in the church would have to be seen in order to be believed. Unfortunately, we were not able to see the sanctuary because of a funeral going on.
The original church was built one mile north of the current site, but was required to move. Much controversy surrounded the proposed move, but due to the name of the church, it remained on Boston Ave. just further south.
Fortunately, we did get to see the inside of some of the sanctuary of the Holy Family Catholic Church. The stained glass windows were so bright that one could feel the spiritual energy radiating from them.
The walk back to the hotel was a long one through a not so attractive part of town. In fact, we crossed the street to avoid a man who was having an imaginary ninja judo fight with someone who wasn't really there.
I was amazed to find out that according to the folks in Tulsa, their art deco is second only to Miami Beach. I certainly would not have expected to find such a "diamond in the rough" as the find in Tulsa, OK.