University of Arkansas

Avery Isaacson, Henry Jones, Madison Bussell Escoto, Abbie Ahlbrandt, Garrison Brister and Silas Wilkinson shared their scholarly and creative work at the inaugural Arkansas Liberal Arts and Humanities Day at the Arkansas State Capitol.

Student media leaders and journalism faculty traveled to Washington, D.C., for MediaFest25, bringing home national awards and valuable connections with alumni working in the nation's capital.

University of Arkansas student Austin Keefe is ranked first place in the country in the Varsity speaking division. Keefe is also ranked in the top 10 as a varsity debater, coming in at ninth. The Speech and Debate Society at the University of Arkansas is represented by top-performing students and is currently ranked in the top five in the country.

The University of Arkansas Speech and Debate Society traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, to compete in the 50th Annual "Red River Classic" hosted by Louisiana State University in Shreveport earning a total of 28 awards, bringing their season-long total to date up to 58. The Speech and debate Society is represented by top-performing students in early reports of national overall rankings, and is proud to announce their placements for the fall semester as of November, including a student currently ranked first place in the country.

Three teams of students in Mock Hogs, which compete in mock trial tournaments nationwide, filled the fall season with growth, achievement and memorable moments for all of their teams.

The University of Arkansas School of Art, housed in the Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences, is proud to announce its faculty, students and an alumna have been named to the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (ACNMWA) 2025-2027 Juried Artist Registry.

At the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, students are continually encouraged to consider how design can address broader social challenges. For fifth-year architecture students Sydney Winkler and Macy Watson, the recent changes to the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits made those conversations feel especially urgent. Instead of thinking of this problem as too big to tackle, they saw an opportunity to act.

Coming from Marked Tree, Arkansas - with a graduating class of just 37 - to the University of Arkansas felt intimidating to Devonte Daniel. But, as he says, "It pushed me out of my comfort zone and opened the door for countless opportunities of learning, growth and connections!" Devonte chose the Sam M. Walton College of Business because of its nationally ranked programs in Marketing and Supply Chain Management, along with the opportunities to connect with Fortune 500 companies right here in Northwest Arkansas.

The University of Arkansas English Department and the Program in Rhetoric and Composition are proud to announce the 2025 winners of the annual Jessie O'Kelly Freshman Essay Award. Qualified submissions were essays written for Composition I or II in the spring or fall semesters of 2024 and submitted for judging in spring 2025.

University of Arkansas Student Involvement and Leadership, along with Associated Student Government, announced the Top 20 Homecoming Queen and King candidates, who will advance to interviews for selection as the top seven finalists. The student body will then vote for the 2025 Homecoming Queen and King. Registered student organizations and Greek chapters nominate candidates. To qualify, candidates must complete at least 90 credit hours, plan to graduate in the 2025-26 academic year, hold a minimum 2.25 GPA, enroll full-time, and maintain a record free of conduct or academic integrity violations.

Altaris MedTech, comprised of University of Arkansas students Joseph Hobbs and Lance Lockwood, won first place at the 2025 Southeastern Conference Student Pitch Competition hosted by Vanderbilt University. Their novel approach to simplifying and improving diagnostic testing with a pain-free, spray-based strep test that eliminates the need for traditional swabs, stood out among student entrepreneurs from across the SEC and earned them a grand prize of $10,000.

Members of the University of Arkansas Speech and Debate Society competed at Mississippi State University's "StarkVegas Debate Invitational," earning 18 awards, including 3rd place in Team IPDA Sweepstakes, 3rd in Overall Sweepstakes, and the "Legendary Silver Cowbell of Victory" for the highest win percentage-a 7% lead over the nearest competitor.

Kicking off the 2025-26 academic year at the University of Arkansas, the Gymbacks registered a new program high GPA and saw 14 athletes named Scholar All-Americans by the Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA). In the WCGA's academic report, Arkansas ranked 21st in the country for team GPA with a 3.72, also a new program high. The Gymbacks were ranked second among SEC teams in GPA and were one of 25 gymnastics programs that had a GPA of 3.70 or higher.

Two graduate students from the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Arkansas won national research awards from the American Society of Criminology-Division on Terrorism and Bias Crimes. Both students will present their research next month at the American Society of Criminology Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

Four students in the Statistics and Analytics (StAn) interdisciplinary graduate program at the University of Arkansas recently presented posters at the 155th annual American Fisheries Society International Meeting in San Antonio.

Six incoming students from across the state of Arkansas joined the distinguished list of Sturgis Fellows this fall in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences' Honors Program at the University of Arkansas. The Sturgis Fellowship is the oldest of the U of A's prestigious fellowship programs, which awards each fellow $80,000 during their four years to cover tuition, room and board, and other academic expenses directly related to their individual major or research interests.

The Honors College at the University of Arkansas has selected 16 exceptional freshmen for the Path Program, which offers financial support and personalized guidance to students who are first-generation college students, have significant financial need or come from less-served areas of the state. In addition to receiving scholarships, mentorship and academic advising, Path scholars live in Hotz Honors Hall and benefit from academic and study abroad opportunities.

The University of Arkansas Honors College has awarded its inaugural Natural State Fellowship to 12 incoming freshmen from across Arkansas. The prestigious fellowship offers up to $80,000 over a four-year period. This support enables students to pursue original research, study abroad, engage in service learning and other enriching academic experiences.

The Spanish section of the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Arkansas welcomed eight new graduate students from across the globe. The class of 2027 is the largest cohort in Spanish in the past decade. This demonstrates the Spanish department's faculty's continued support of student success and the U of A's increasing visibility as a world-class educational institution for literary and cultural studies in Spanish.

The Spanish section of the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Arkansas welcomed the arrival of eight new graduate students from across the globe. The class of 2027 is the largest cohort in Spanish in the past decade. This demonstrates the Spanish department's faculty's continued support of student success and the U of A's increasing visibility as a world-class educational institution for literary and cultural studies in Spanish.

The University of Arkansas Honors College selected six incoming first-year students from Arkansas as the recipients of this year's Bodenhamer Fellowships, one of the most prestigious scholarships the university offers to undergraduates, awarding each student up to $80,000 over the four-year course of their education.

For the past three years, the Golden Cardinal search has been a staple for A-Week participants. A small, three-pound metal cardinal is hidden on campus, and a new clue is published each day of A-Week, leading students one step closer to finding it. This year, the Golden Cardinal was hidden in the brush at the bottom of the Garland Parking Garage and found by freshmen Andrea Sikora and Katie Tucker.

Samuel Ajala, a graduate student at the University of Arkansas Department of Communication, has been selected as National Communication Association 2025 Interest Group Award winner. He has been awarded the 2025 Activism and Social Justice Division Graduate Student Activist Award for his research and advocacy work in environmental communication, which is deeply rooted in community engagement.

The University of Arkansas Honors College selected 100 exceptional high school students, including 91 from Arkansas, to receive Honors College Fellowships, which award up to $80,000, largely to cover tuition, fees, books, room and board, and other academic expenses over four years, providing these students the freedom to pursue original research, study abroad, service learning and other academic interests.

Deborah Olubanjo, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Arkansas, earned first place in the Foodborne Pathogens & Contaminants in Animal-Based Products category at the 17th Annual Arkansas Association for Food Protection (AAFP) meeting in Fayetteville.

Drew Holland, a recent graduate from Greenwood High School, was awarded the Black and Reeder Scholarship and will pursue a degree in biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas. The scholarship is gifted from U of A alumni Sherman Black and Lynnette Reeder Black and is awarded to a Greenwood High School student seeking a degree in engineering or business at the University of Arkansas.

The University of Arkansas had a strong showing at the 2025 Missouri Valley District Institute of Transportation Engineers (MOVITE) Fall Meeting in Des Moines. MOVITE represents transportation professionals across six states: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. The organization was chartered in 1951, and the University of Arkansas student chapter joined in 1993.

The International Students Organization at the University of Arkansas announces its new executive board for the 2025-26 academic year. Throughout the 2025-26 term, the ISO executives plan to create educational events, cultural exchange, fun activities, and networking opportunities for international students. For more information on how to get involved with ISO or to learn more about upcoming initiatives, please contact the board at iso@uark.edu.

Five University of Arkansas students - Kate Tandy, Maddie Gwinner, Reece Boykin, Chasmitha Batta and Camryn Christ - represented the university at the 2025 BridgeUSA Summit in Indianapolis, Indiana. The annual summit brings together student leaders from across the country to exchange ideas on fostering constructive political dialogue and building more inclusive campus communities.

Tanmaie Kalapala, a University of Arkansas poultry science Ph.D. student, has been awarded a Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education 2025 Graduate Student Grant. This grant is awarded to graduate students at accredited institutions across the Southern region to conduct research projects on a wide variety of sustainable agriculture production, marketing and social science topics.