The Southern Arkansas University Hallman Scholarship has been awarded to two inspiring young women who will be incoming freshmen this fall in the SAU College of Science and Engineering.
The Hallman Scholarship is funded through the SAU Foundation and provides scholarships for incoming freshmen women in the sciences. The scholarships are based on ACT scores and other aid. The 2018 inductees are Rebekah Leamons of Gurdon, Arkansas, and Alyssa Brown of Fordyce, Arkansas.
Rebekah Leamons
Leamons is a 2018 graduate of Gurdon High School. She plans to obtain a degree in Computer Science (Game & Animation Design) from SAU and was inspired by a love of books, movies, videogames, comics and cartoons to pursue coding and 3D modeling. She has a GPA of 4.15 and wants to use her degree from SAU to show that women can enter the STEM field and to continue to tell her own stories.
Alyssa Brown
Brown’s goal is to receive a biology degree from SAU and continue to a graduate degree in medicine specializing in oncology. At Fordyce High School, she is class valedictorian with a GPA of 4.12. She was raised by her grandparents and is thankful that this scholarship will relieve any financial burden and allow her to focus on and continue to excel in her academics.
Leamons and Brown join esteemed previous Hallman Scholarship recipients – Elizabeth Jacobs, pre-veterinarian major from Texarkana; Alexandria Oliver, biology major from Atlanta, Texas; Karissa Shackelford, pre-nursing major from Waldo; Jada Fricks, chemistry major from Saratoga; Calla Bassett, engineering major from Phoenix, Arizona; Bailey Romero, nursing student from Little Rock; Taylor McNeel, National FFA President and SAU agriculture science student from Vilonia, Ark.; and Emily Snyder, a pre-pharmacy student from Cabot High School.
Dedicated to providing opportunities for women, 1966 graduate of SAU Cinda Hallman provided funds for the scholarship through her estate. Hallman was one of four women heading Fortune 500 companies at the time of her appointment as CEO of Spherion Corporation. Before joining Spherion, Hallman had a distinguished 20-year career with DuPont. As senior vice president of DuPont global systems and processes, she had full responsibility for global information technology, processes and strategy, and corporate core managing processes. She was named Chief Information Officer of the Year by Information Week Magazine for “reshaping DuPont’s information systems organization to meet the changing competitive needs of its business units.”
