White shared memories of his early career that led to teaching becoming a life-long motivation.

“The reservations can be very challenging,” said White. “When I officiated graduation ceremonies and saw our Native American candidates come across the stage in their native attire – the pride and tears of joy on their faces, their families whooping it up with pride. I knew then that teachers are the dream enablers. Teaching is the best profession available anywhere.

Growing up outside of Shreveport, La., White took an aptitude test in the ninth grade.

“It suggested that I would have an outdoor job working in the sciences and sports. The guidance counselor called me in and gave me a brow beating about being a role model, school leader, etc.,” he said. “I was told to set a better example by taking the placement exams seriously that there was no way that career combination was possible. Twelve years later, I was teaching biology, physical science, chemistry and coaching football.”

With 18 years of higher education administrative experience before coming to Southern Arkansas University, White figures the guidance counselor should have been more open-minded enough to help him plan a mechanism to achieve the goal instead of creating opposition and being judgmental. That experience made its impact.

He received a Bachelor of Science in physical education with a minor in chemistry, Master’s in Science in physical education with a minor in guidance counseling and an Education Doctorate in physical education with a minor in ergonomic engineering.

White has prepared teacher educators in Montana, Tennessee, South Carolina and Mississippi and taught and coached for eight years in Louisiana.

At SAU, he teaches methods classes, supervises field experiences and facilitates learning for the online master’s degree in kinesiology with emphasis on research methods, statistics and methodology.

He loves teaching and will accomplish that mission any way possible. Because of that focus, White has been a trail blazer in distance learning at SAU.

“Distance learning is an asynchronous means of interfacing with the learning environment. It is one of the tools used for information delivery that is available through a comprehensive university. All learners do not have the luxury of being able to attend classes that are scheduled at the ‘regular times,’” he said. “Those learners are paying state taxes, but the message they sometimes get is that they can only access state supported public education if they come to us on our time schedule. Online education affords them the opportunity to pursue betterment through education on their time schedule.”

White incorporates SAU’s Blackboard to interface with off-site students and to deliver educational opportunities to those seeking betterment through education. White strives for interaction that utilizes materials over a longer time frame rather than regurgitation of fact.

“We have to be very explicit and realize that the only contact we have with the learner is the Blackboard interface.  The more simple and clear we can make it and the more alike it is to the in-class options, the less frustration the student will experience with the process, which frees up their focus for learning activities,” he said.

At the beginning of the semester, White provides a precise syllabus, a course guide, a learning guide for each module and everything that is needed for the online class throughout the semester. Clear, customized communication is pivotal to, not only success in the classes, but in long-term retention of the material.

“I open each class with a personalized email that explains the navigation tools for the course,” White said.

According to Kathy Cole, director of online learning at SAU, White is always willing to try new web 2.0 tools to engage students in learning.

“He frequently seeks feedback not only from students, but from colleagues and support staff,” said Cole. “He strives to design and deliver an exceptional online course, which is important for an educator teaching educators. He takes his role seriously knowing that he is not only responsible for teaching subject matter content, but modeling good teaching practices during the process.”

White reads, explores and borrows successful ideas where he finds them. He also learns and adapts his processes with the help of student feedback, which is generally favorable, but there are those that don’t like it. White creates focus groups and uses the input to tweak the process.

“We have not discovered a better way to enhance writing skills, critical thinking and elongating the learning the process,” he said.

There is a slight down side to teaching online, he said.

“What I miss about online learning is the body language,” said White. “We have been taught that 70 percent of a message is delivered nonverbally. When you see a student break through on a concept and their eyes go from a ‘glazed trout’ look to electric excitement – you know you’ve been successful in getting that message through. Online, 100 percent of the message is nonverbal. As I gain experience, I’m starting to recognize the same passion and electric responses when online students get it.”

The first annual conference dedicated to research was the brain child of Vice president for Academic Affairs Dr. Trey Berry, who at the time was the dean of the College of Liberal and Performing Arts. Dr.

Linda Tucker, of the Department of English was intrigued by the idea.

“She took the idea and ran with it,” said Berry. “Dr. Tucker organized an interdisciplinary committee of faculty members and they began to work on the concept, recruit and publicize the conference and organize every detail.”

Berry credits Tucker and the committee, which included Dr. Sara Day, Dr. Shawn Krosnick, Shannin Schroeder, Tim Schroeder, Paul Babbitt, Brittney Schrick and Juping Wang, for taking the reins and making the Oct. 12 conference happen. The faculty committee also chose the posters and papers presented. According to Day, the faculty hosted pre-conference events where students could attend round-table discussions about graduate school.

Dr. Kim Bloss, Dr. Misty LaCour, James Reppert, Dr. Charles Keller, Dr. James Ulmer, Dr. Elizabeth Davis and Dr. Pablo Bacon also devoted a tremendous amount of time and help with the conference.

The faculty was very enthusiastic about the concept, according to Berry.

“They saw a need for such an event that would highlight such student research and encourage more participation in scholarly endeavors,” he said. “It also encourages joint scholarly work between faculty and students. At SAU we are trying to create more experiential learning opportunities for our students and faculty. The Mid-South Undergraduate Research Conference is a great example of what can be done by and for students beyond the classroom.

Since the Mid-South consists of Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, invitations to submit papers, posters, projects and presentations went out to universities in those states.

A total of 35 student presenters from four states – Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana – came to the Magnolia campus for the two-day event that included Friday workshops and Saturday presentation schedules.

These motivated SAU students represented the four SAU colleges, as follows:

Sciences: Subir Shakya, Samson King

Math: Jonathon Loftin, Kara O’Neal and Jessica Zigler

Humanities: Nimendra Mawalagedara, James Schlag, Majesta Miles, Megan Kelley

Education: Jeanette Rodriguez, Charity Jones

Several students took time to talk about their projects and their experience at the first annual conference.

Subir Bahadur Shakya, who received an honorable mention for his poster on karyotyping procedures, said he spent a “good deal of time on the project.”

The purpose to Shakya’s and King’s project, with the help of Dr. Krosnick, was to identify and arrange the various chromosomes. According to Shakya, it involved two methods: one using a vile of blood and the other using just a few drops of blood. Both were treated to various chemicals and then mounted on a slide to get a few spreads on the slide.

“The hardest part was counting all of the spreads in a slide which sometimes could amount to 200 in a single slide,” he said.

Shakya said the conference experience was a positive one.

“The overall outcome of the conference was a great experience gained. I met several interested and enthusiastic people who had no idea we did this sort of thing in the university. This procedure has been incorporated in the genetics lab course,” he said. “I also learned about the various works being done in other universities and their implications. This should be a plus point in applying for grad school.”

After a year of intense study in her learning theory class, Jeanette Rodriguez researched and presented about Swedish psychologist Jean Piaget and his theory of cognitive development.

“He proposed that children learned through experiencing disequilibrium in their thinking,” the education major said. “Through accommodation and assimilation, children moved through four distinct cognitive developmental stages: Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational.”

She prepped by going over possible questions people would have about her work.

“It took me several hours to put together the physical presentation,” she said. “The mental aspect took the longest.”

Rodriguez jumped at the opportunity when Dr. LaCour approached her about it.

“We receive constant support from everyone in our department,” said Rodriguez. “They are happy to let their students present or to be a part of something like this. It is a reflection of themselves as educators, and they want us to have the experience of presenting to other people. After all, it will be a huge part of our job as educators.”

Charity Jones presented with her team a project on Bloom’s taxonomy, which is related to skills in the cognitive domain that include knowledge, comprehension, and critical thinking of a particular topic, Jones explained.

In her presentation, Jones shared research on the six levels in taxonomy, which include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

According to Jones, it took her two weeks to prepare her presentation for the conference.

“I learned that not a lot of people have heard of Bloom’s taxonomy and that the Socratic method used in law school and Bloom’s taxonomy are very similar.”

Dr. LaCour provided support and guidance through the new experience. Jones said the experience would help her tremendously in her teaching career.

For Kara O’Neal, learning the unexpected twists in a presentation were valuable and help to prepare her for presenting her joint project at the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) in Boston in November.

“People asked me all kinds of questions about my topic that weren’t necessarily on my presentation board, and I was happy to answer them,” she said. “It was great practice for me. It is so important to know inside and out everything you are teaching.”

O’Neal worked in conjunction with Jessica Zigler and Darrell Gray, as well as Dr. Ed Kardas and Dr. Deborah Wilson, as part of a statistics honors contract course.

“This was the first time that a contract course for this particular class had been done. We met with Dr. Wilson and input data,” said O’Neal. “Our presentation was about our experiences and what we gained from doing the project. It also helped us formulate suggestions for future statistics honors contract courses.”

O’Neal said that part of becoming an effective educator is more than memorizing information in order to pass a test, and this conference was valuable in helping her excel in that role.

“This is information that needs to sink in and it really needs to mean something to you. It’s our job to be intellectual sponges – to take in more information than is required of us, then conveying it to students in a relatable, applicable way.”

O’Neal said the best part of this opportunity was seeing others share their research and to interact with students from other universities.

“It sparked my interest in research,” she said. “The conference was beneficial and made me want to look for more opportunities in research.”