Student Pagan Association Honors

STUDENT PAGAN ASSOCIATION HONORS AND EXCELLENCE



S.P.A. was accepted as a Registered Student Organization in 1993. S.P.A. was accepted into the Council of Religious Organizations in 1994.

Brian, our first president, has gone on several excavations to Egypt. He served as the chief ceramacist on one of his recent excavations, and he was mentioned by name for a discovery in Egypt on page 58 in the Winter 97/99 issue of KMT (a world-wide Egyptian Archaeology journal). He received his degree in Archaeology at the U of A and is pursuing a graduate degree in Egyptology at the University of Memphis. Some of his work in Abydos, Egypt is recognized in the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.

There have been numerous active members (including Michael, Jeff, Mikhelle, Tai, Chad, Leilani, Jacob) in the Eta Sigma Phi Classical Languages Honor Society at the U of A. Jacob was elected president of this society at the U of A for the 2001-2002 school year.

Chad, our second president and a National Merit Scholar, received a SILO/SURF grant and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1996. He holds degrees in Computer Science, German, and Classical Studies.

Sheila, our third president and a National Merit Scholar, received the prestigious Presidential Scholar award and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1998. She received a degree in Political Science.

Jeff and Sherri received graduate assistantships at the U of A in the Comparative Literature and Geosciences departments, respectively. They have now completed their graduate degrees.

Brian was featured in a local newspaper for his work on an Egyptian sarcophagus that was moved to Fayetteville.

Michael Carragher had his well-reviewed book A World Full of Places: And Other Stories published in 1997.

In 1999, Dr. Sandra Edwards, our advisor from 1993-2000, received a plaque as an award from S.P.A. for completing 5 years of service to us.

The S.P.A. website won a Pagan Best of the Web Award.

Chad's "HTML Converter Program" webpage, which features a program that does dictionary and morphological tagging for text files, won a Perseus Award for Classical Excellence and was favorably reviewed in the Spring 2000 issue of The Classical Outlook (the journal of the American Classical League).

At least two of our members (Chad, Sheila) have been Phi Beta Kappa members. We have had several Golden Key members in S.P.A. as well.

S.P.A. has been involved in numerous community service projects over the years (Toys for Tots toy drive, U of A Habitat for Humanity can and money donations, a sponsor of the Fayetteville "Stop the Hate Vigil," Winter clothes drive for the Salvation Army, a food drive for the regional bank, a Habitat for Humanity build-day participant, a food and clothes drive for the Fayetteville Seven Hills Homeless Shelter, a sponsor of the "What does it mean to be Human?" teleconference with United Campus Ministries and Episcopal ministry, etc.)