HONORS COLLEGE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Admissions Counselor
- Counselor for the Honors
Abby is the admissions counselor for the Honors college. She got her undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas in Biological Anthropology. When she isn't on the road talking to prospective honors students, she enjoys going to the farmers market with her two weenie dogs and coo king dinners for her friends. Abby is currently working on her master's in Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling.
Ariel Romero's honors thesis Welcome to America looks different than most-eight posters and a brochure exploring the plight of undocumented college students. The fine arts/graphic design major selected the topic based on his personal experience.
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Communications Assistant
As communications assistant Ben Pierce helps to edit the Honors College blog and assists with production of A+, the Honors College magazine. Most days you can find him behind the Honors College front desk, greeting prospective students and screening calls.
An undergraduate history and political science major from Fayetteville, Arkansas, Pierce has previously served as the mobile foods coordinator for the university's on-campus food pantry.
In his free time, he enjoys biking around Lake Fayetteville, reading thrillers, and rewatching "Lost" with his friends.
Job Titles:
- Director of Grants & Research Innovation
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean of Enrollment / Preparing
As associate dean of enrollment, Noah Pittman facilitates collaboration between university faculty, staff, and current students to help high school students learn about opportunities in the Honors College. He oversees new student enrollment for the Honors College, which includes managing the prestigious fellowship application process. Pittman works closely with a number of campus partners, including Undergraduate Admissions, University Housing, New Student Orientation, the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards, and all six honors programs. Students can often find Pittman in the classroom teaching honors courses related to American politics and public policy.
Pittman earned a B.A. in political science, summa cum laude, from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., where he was active in a number of campus groups and won numerous awards, among them the Yerger Hunt Clifton Scholarship for British Studies at Oxford, the Seidman Award for Most Outstanding Senior Political Science Major, and the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. At the University of Arkansas, Pittman earned a M.Ed. in higher education leadership along with a Ph.D. in public policy. Pittman primarily studies higher education policy, and his dissertation focused on the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery's effect on college participation in the state, which earned him the William Miller Best Public Policy Dissertation Award at the university. During his time in graduate school, Pittman was the recipient of the Mortar Board National Fellowship for Graduate Study.
After graduate school, Pittman participated in the College Board's Enrollment Leadership Academy, a monthly professional development program for "rising stars" in enrollment management. He also received the Staff Gold Medal Award from the university's Office of Nationally Competitive Awards in 2016. Currently, Pittman is an appointed member of the College Board's Southwestern Regional Council and also serves on the Southern Association for College Admissions Counseling's Extending the Dream Grants Committee. At the University of Arkansas, Pittman is the vice president of the Alpha of Arkansas chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. In his free time, Pittman enjoys spending time with his family all over Northwest Arkansas, watching old episodes of The Office, and losing his voice at Razorback sporting events. He is also a lifelong fan of the Atlanta Braves.
The Honors College's home is located in the heart of campus, in a beautiful, 21,000-square-foot addition to historic Gearhart Hall. Designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects of New York City, a nationally renowned architecture firm, the Honors College wing features study areas, rooms for honors seminars and a spacious student lounge (pro tip: best naps on campus!) A 216-seat auditorium below provides space for classes, lectures, film screenings and other events. Be sure to check out our landscaped courtyard with the gorgeous Curvahedra sculpture -- Dean Coon holds office hours there in temperate weather!
Hotz Hall, renovated and updated in 2013 to house more than 400 first-year honors students, has been thoughtfully designed to foster a vibrant, 24/7 honors community. Hotz boasts a large space for relaxation on the main floor where students can gather to play ping-pong and pool, bake cookies, watch movies, and read near the fireplace. A music room, conference rooms and small theater is available for student use as well. The proximity of Hotz Hall to upper-level honors students housed in nearby dormitories creates opportunities for greater interaction between these groups, and the Honors College offers a wide range of programs, from Dinner with the Dean to Marvel movie marathons. For more information and floor plans, check out the University Housing page on Hotz Honors Hall.
Have a question or need to talk to Dean Coon? Contact us at honors@uark.edu or visit us in Gearhart Hall. Our friendly administrative staff will be glad to help you (and they keep the candy jar full!)
As associate dean of the Honors College, Jennie Popp oversees the Honors College fellowship and grant programs, serves as the college's liaison with the six college-based honors programs, and leads and directs new initiatives in international research and service learning.
Popp is a professor of agricultural economics and agricultural business. She helped to launch service learning on campus by developing the agricultural component of the community development program based in Dangriga, Belize.
Peace Corps service in West Africa inspired Jennie Popp's interest in agricultural economics. Her research focuses on managing natural resources to improve soil and water quality and the development and implementation of agricultural and environmental policy. She has published two books and numerous book chapters, journal articles and reports. She has led or contributed to more than $20 million of externally funded research on campus. She has presented her work at professional meetings and conferences throughout the United States. She earned a B.S. degree in economics and finance at the University of Scranton, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural and resource economics at Colorado State University.
Popp served as a member of the Bumpers College Honors Committee for nearly 10 years. She has directed many honors student theses on topics ranging from assessing women's roles in Arkansas agriculture to composting food waste from campus residence halls. Many of her students have won awards for their honors research on campus and at the regional and national level. Popp has participated in honors committees within Bumpers College and Fulbright College and until recently, served as "first mentor" to all incoming honors students majoring in agribusiness. She received an Honors College Distinguished Faculty Award in 2011.
In her spare time, Popp enjoys tinkering in her garden, exploring the NWA trail system with her family and cheering on Philadelphia's professional sports teams.
Hampton graduated with her B.A. in political science and M.A. in public administration from the University of Arkansas. While attending school, she worked in the Offices of Career Connections, where she found her passion for expanding access to higher education. Hampton received the Benjamin Franklin Lever Tuition Fellowship, allowing her to pursue a graduate degree and gain a new appreciation for the lasting impact scholarship opportunities have on students.
Jessica plans to one day pursue a Ph.D., but for now, she is excited to begin her career in development. Outside the office, Jessica enjoys spending time with her golden retriever, Rusty, trying new restaurants in Northwest Arkansas and taking any opportunity to travel.
Job Titles:
- Director of STEM and Premedical Professions
Job Titles:
- Fellowship Financial Manager
Kelly (Langston) Carter has been helping our Bodenhamer and Honors College Fellows manage their fellowship funds since 2005. Her responsibilities include monitoring student's academic progress, financial matters and fellowship renewals. She also works closely on various aspects of the Bodenhamer Fellowship program. Part of those duties includes planning a five-day trip each year to Washington, D.C., for incoming freshmen Bodenhamer fellows and two faculty chaperones.
Prior to joining the Honors College staff Carter served as director of the Academic Scholarship Office for seven years and as a financial aid counselor. She received her M.Ed. degree in higher education and her B.S. degree with honors in geology from the University of Arkansas.
Job Titles:
- Director of Career Innovation
As director of career innovation for the Honors College, Louise Hancox helps students create their "first professional self" by finding opportunities to expand their resumes outside of the classroom.
Her position calls for collaboration throughout campus: she draws upon resources from the Career Center, the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, as well as those in the individual colleges to ensure that honors scholars are prepared for and can communicate their value in the twenty-first century workplace. She has helped coordinate the Entrepreneurs honors forum taught by Walton College Dean Matt Waller, and continues to partner with Walton College and the College of Engineering to produce more innovative honors courses, fostering strong pipelines between innovators, entrepreneurs, and honors students.
Hancox was born in England and grew up in Canada. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and her MBA at York University in Toronto. She recently completed her Ph.D. in American history and visual culture here at the University of Arkansas, where her dissertation revolved around an iconic painting, The Arkansas Traveler. She was able to use this research to curate an exhibit for the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She has served as the conference director for the Southern Intellectual History Circle and has made multiple contributions to the Ozark Historical Review. Before her time at the University of Arkansas, Hancox served as a logistics coordinator, a demand planning and project analyst, and a principal consultant in Chicago, Illinois.
In her spare time, she loves to read, spend time in art museums, and spend weekends at the lake with her family.
Lynda Coon brings a deep commitment to honors education and a fresh vision for the future to her new role as dean of the Honors College.
Coon joined the University of Arkansas faculty in 1990 as a history professor in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. She has mentored nearly two dozen honors students on their thesis projects and served as honors advisor in the history department for a decade. Several of her students were awarded SURF and Honors College research grants and a number of them have moved on to graduate studies at institutions such as Cambridge University, Columbia University, Yale University, and the University of Virginia.
In 1995 she helped to launch the Honors Humanities Project (H2P), an interdisciplinary four-semester sequence of courses taught by teams of top professors. She served as director of H2P from 1998-2004 and continues to be actively involved in the program, which has become a cornerstone experience for many honors students.
Coon earned a bachelor's degree in history at James Madison University and master's and doctoral degrees in history from the University of Virginia. She served as an associate dean of fine arts and humanities and director of the Religious Studies Program in Fulbright College prior to her appointment as Honors College dean. Coon also led the Fulbright College Study Abroad Program in Rome from 2001-04 and chaired the department of history from 2008-13.
Dean Coon's research focuses on the history of Christianity from circa 300-900. Her first book, Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity, explored the sacred biographies of holy women in late antiquity. Her second book, Dark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West, focused on the ritual, spatial and gendered worlds of monks in the Carolingian period (ca. 750-987). She is currently researching a book on imagining Jesus in the Dark Ages. With colleague Kim Sexton, associate professor of architecture, Coon received Honors College seed funding to develop Medieval Bodies/Medieval Spaces, an interdisciplinary honors colloquium that traces the evolution of western medieval history through text, ritual and built environments.
Coon is a member of the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy and has received three top teaching honors at the university: the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award in 1998, the Charles and Nadine Baum University of Arkansas Teaching Award in 2000, and the University of Arkansas Honors College Distinguished Faculty Award in 2014. In her free time, she enjoys walking her dogs up on Mt. Sequoyah, reading historical fiction, and visiting the numinous architectural spaces of the medieval monasteries of Europe.
Job Titles:
- Information Technology Specialist
Michael J. Zachary began working for the Honors College in October 2004 as the technical adviser/ support technician for the Honors College smart rooms project. As information technology specialist his responsibilities include IT support for the Honors College and academic scholarship office, as well as support, periodical maintenance, design assistance and implementation of audiovisual solutions in current and future smart classrooms.
Zachary is currently pursuing a Master of Education Degree in Educational Technology at the University of Arkansas. In his spare time, he likes to ride horses and cook - he makes an awesome roux!
Job Titles:
- Associate Director, Path Program
Michelle King brings a wealth of mentoring experience to her position as associate director of the Honors College Path Program. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, she interned in the student affairs department, where she led a mentoring program for freshmen and transfer students, co-facilitated weekly courses on leadership and campus life, and organized social events and community service projects. King is a Gates Millennium Scholar and served as an ambassador for that program, visiting high schools and hosting writing workshops to help students develop essays for their scholarship application.
After earning her bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology with a minor in education, King completed a master's degree in higher education in student affairs here at the University of Arkansas, serving as a graduate assistant in recruitment for the Honors College. She gained valuable experience in recruitment as an admissions counselor for the U of A's enrollment services before returning to the Honors College to support the Path Program. King is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education administration.
As assistant director of Path, King participates in strategic planning, assists with the application and interview process, helps plan the summer bridge program for incoming freshmen, and mentors students in the program. She also travels to high school and college fairs to recruit prospective students to the Honors College and assists with major recruitment events. Her ultimate goal is to become a professor in the department of education as well as serve as a dean of student affairs in a university. The surprising fact about Michelle? She was born on February 29 so her birthday occurs just once every four years - but her family celebrates her birth three days in a row on years without her actual birthday!
Even though she is earning an engineering degree, Samia ultimately plans to pursue a joint M.D./Master of Public Health degree, and become a practicing physician and healthcare policy advisor to legislators and executive officials.
Job Titles:
- Director of Communications
As a seasoned writer and Honors College alumna, Shelby Gill combines extensive communications experience with a passion for sharing and celebrating the stories of our Honors College students, faculty and staff.
As the Director of Communications, Gill leads the college's marketing communications, media relations, social media, editorial, digital strategy and visual identity supporting the growth and development of the Honors College.
Gill has more than 10 years of experience in journalism and communications focused on storytelling, design and digital media.
Gill launched her career in Austin, Texas, where she worked in the non-profit sector leading organizations in communications strategy and fundraising. Most recently, she served as the chief development officer and interim CEO for Make-A-Wish Central & South Texas.
As the Director of Communications, Gill leads the college's marketing communications, media relations, social media, editorial, digital strategy and visual identity supporting the growth and development of the Honors College.
Gill has more than 10 years of experience in journalism and communications focused on storytelling, design and digital media.
Gill launched her career in Austin, Texas, where she worked in the non-profit sector leading organizations in communications strategy and fundraising. Most recently, she served as the chief development officer and interim CEO for Make-A-Wish Central & South Texas.
Gill earned a bachelor's degree in journalism, magna cum laude, '14, from the U of A. She established a strong track record in leadership as an undergraduate, serving as an editor and features designer for the Arkansas Traveler and chairing the Society of Professional Journalists student chapter. She was awarded the Elizabeth Barnes Messner '38 Scholarship for her academic performance and received awards for writing and design from the Arkansas College Media Association.
In her free time, Gill enjoys dreaming up new vegan recipes and organizing living room dance parties with her husband, son and two cocker spaniels.
As assistant dean, Xochitl Delgado Solorzano is responsible for developing and implementing the Honors College vision for diversity, equity and inclusion, and plays a vital role in securing funds for these activities. Delgado Solorzano also serves as director of the Honors College Path Program, where she oversees recruitment and student success, grant requirements and fundraising. She loves getting to know such a diverse group of students and witnessing their unquenchable enthusiasm for their studies and college experience. Her office doubles as a comfortable space for Path students to drop by and chat, have a snack or take a nap between classes.
Raised in Springdale, Xochitl Delgado Solorzano earned a bachelor of arts in Spanish from Hendrix College, going on to earn a master's degree in Spanish from the University of Kansas, followed by a master's in public service from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. A lifelong believer in the importance of giving back to one's community, she now finds herself back in Northwest Arkansas to help secure educational success for students from across the state.
Delgado Solorzano has dedicated her career to advocacy and education, serving most recently as a consultant in recent years for the Hispanic Women's Organization of Arkansas and previously as a program associate at the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Through research and administrative support, Delgado Solorzano helped enable these institutions to better serve diverse populations across the state of Arkansas. Over the years her work has taken her from Springdale to Little Rock to Accra, Ghana, where she led the implementation of a financial literacy program at two schools in the Greater Accra region.
In her free time Delgado Solorzano enjoys going on hikes with family and her four-legged niece Goya, a retired greyhound racer from the West Memphis track. She also enjoys exploring Arkansas, and has a goal of visiting all the Arkansas State Parks (so far she's been to 19 of 52)!