Itzel Toro, Sarah Hall, and Professor Azar Raiszadeh with wands purchased at the Universal Studios Harry Potter exhibit, in honor of the conference theme: the Magic of Honors.
Sarah Hall and Itzel Toro of Chattanooga, represented Global Scholars at the 2016 Southern Region Honors Council (SRHC) conference in Orlando, Florida. Based on their research in Honors MATH 1530 during the Fall semester, these students submitted a proposal titled Core Fundamentals Learned in Introduction to Statistics and Their Application to Research. More than 400 conference proposals were submitted, and these Global Scholars earned a spot to share their research with hundreds of other honors students, faculty, and administrators from across the region. Ms. Hall and Ms. Toro were among very few community college students who presented at the conference, and the only students from a TBR institution.
Their research was part of a Service Learning project designed by their honors Professor, Dr. Azar Raiszadeh. The primary purpose of the project was to analyze student outcomes in the new learning support co-requisite remediation model. More than 1,000 students enrolled in MATH 1530 were surveyed. Global Scholars in the honors MATH 1530 course analyzed this data to explore the relationship between student GPAs and numerous variables including college readiness, number of hours students were working per week, how many hours slept per night, and number of hours spent on social media.
In addition to the opportunity to present, they were also able to network with other honors students and hear presentations from several senior thesis projects allowing them to gain ideas and insights to bring back to Chattanooga State.
The SRHC conference theme was The Magic of Honors and was heavily influenced by the Harry Potter series. As such, conference attendees, including Ms. Hall and Ms. Toro, spent time enjoying Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, reinforcing the magical and transformative world of honors education.
For more information about Global Scholars, contact Amanda Bennett at Amanda.bennett@chattanoogastate.edu or call 423-697-2577.