My Opportunities
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Linda’s Opportunity
Ashley’s Opportunity
Amanda’s Opportunity
Miller Exum, the nspired by the help she he late state senator Lfirstinda I mother of two, sits for her was able to provide to the T and party chair Bill actuary exam this fall as family of a profoundly sick Gwatney loved politics. So she completes requirements for a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics with a minor in statistics thanks to the Damerow Endowed Mathematics and Statistics Award for 2012.
“Furthering my education has offered me great personal satisfaction, but most importantly, it has shown my two young daughters how important education is, and with hard work and dedication you can grow, learn, and be assured of a better tomorrow,” she said. Exum, who lives in Hot Springs, took an independent study course this summer in nonparametric statistical methods to fulfill requirements for the minor. She is particularly interested in actuary science, a field she said is dynamic and challenging. “Traditionally thought of as an insurance professional, the skills and talents of an actuary are also used in financial, transportation, energy, and environmental agencies, so prospects of employment are very favorable,” she said.
does Ashley Baker, a Navy veteran who chose to use her G.I. Bill benefits to enroll at UALR because of its strong working relationship with veterans and its dynamic Department of Political Science. Her quest to graduate and train as a Navy officer has been helped by her selection to receive the Bill Gwatney Memorial Endowed Scholarship. “This scholarship will provide the essentials needed to stay in school such as daycare, gas, food, and books,” she said. With a degree in political science, she will be able to enroll in the Navy Officer Candidate School and possibly qualify to become a Navy pilot. “After my naval career, I plan on returning to politics and running for office,” she said. “I love this country and truly believe that one person can make a difference.” So did Bill Gwatney.
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child, Amanda Cox began her quest to become a nurse by enrolling in UALR’s Department of Nursing. “Throughout my college experience, I have been able to work a full-time job and thought that I would be able to continue working through the nursing program,” she said. “When I entered my second semester, I found this not to be possible for me. I had no choice but to stop working full time. This left me relying completely on loans.” Then she received a Rockefeller Scholarship just before starting her second year in the nursing program. “When I received the letter that I was awarded this scholarship, I felt a huge load lifted off my shoulders,” she said in a letter of gratitude to Lisenne Rockefeller, who represents the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. “If it were not for you and your compassion for giving students the means and support to complete their degree, I do not know how I would be able to make it through my last year.” Cox’s goal is to become an intensive care nurse who can help care for families and “children whose lives have been interrupted and turned upside down by a disability.”
Ron’s Opportunity rowing up in a crimeG ridden pocket of southwest Little Rock, Ron
Wilkerson saw education as something unachievable. After a rough journey through the public schools, he finally dropped out with a dismal grade point average of .08. After eight years of marriage to a loving and supportive wife who is a human relations professional, Wilkerson was motivated to try again in 2006, going to night classes for construction management at UALR while working 40 hours a week and helping to raise their 1-year old son. This year, he was honored to receive the Kirk Davis-AGC Scholarship. “It is the help and benefits which you provide that allow hard-working students such as me the opportunity to succeed in increasingly difficult economic times,” he wrote to the donors of the scholarship. Wilkerson has maintained his status as an honor student since he has been at UALR. Only twice in his college career has he failed to achieve a perfect 4.0 GPA. Already an employee in the facility and construction department at a regional bank, Wilkerson said his degree will give him a leg up in his career when he graduates in 2013.