Congratulations to the eight A-State staff members who have attained service milestones of 40 or 30 years. They will be recognized today during the Distinguished Performance Awards and Service Recognition ceremony. Two individuals – Clint Halcom in Facilities Management and Dr. Ruth A. Hawkins in Heritage Sites – have each achieved 40 years of service.

Six staff members have 30 years of service: Mark Berky, Ellis Library; Bobby R. Burton, Grounds and Landscape; Tracy Finch, Admissions, Records and Registration; Billy Hogue, Controller; Hope R. Phillips, Arkansas Biosciences Institute; and Katrina Watson, Human Resources.

Daniel A. Parker, assessment coordinator, Professional Education Programs, will present “Retrieval Practice as Process in Self-Directed Learning: New Philosophical Directions for Self-Directed Learning” at the Adult Education Research Conference next month in Buffalo, N.Y. His presentation advocates functional contextualism as a research philosophy to synthesize cognitive science and adult self-directed learning research, while exploring use cases for retrieval practice as a learning strategy.

Nine individuals who have attained 20 years of service will be recognized today during the Service Recognition Ceremony. Those individuals and their employment areas are Cynthia D. Beason, Ecotoxicology Research Lab; Esther Boyd, Facilities Management; Vicki Fletcher, Human Resources; Karen Fullen, Department of Social Work; Teresa Mosley, Information Technology Services; Greg Olson, Facilities Management; Christine D. Perry, College of Business; Dee Warren, Information Technology Services; and Sharon Webb, Institutional Effectiveness.

Graduate public administration students in a class led by Mary Margaret Jackson, instructor in public administration, were credited by the City of Jonesboro for their assistance with a federal housing grant for homeless veterans. The next "Grant Writing and Administration" class starts in the first summer term, and Jackson is inviting project ideas for the class, which will work on grant applications for various organizations.

At the Service Recognition Ceremony today, 18 staff members will receive certificates for attaining the 10-year service milestone. Congratulations to these recipients: Lt. Billy Branch, Chris Charette, Robert Coggins, Rick Duncan, Terry Finney, Traci Fortner, Angela K. Gilbert, Jacquline Nicole Goad, Susan Harper, Vaneta Williams Harvey, Robert L. Hobbs, Lisa Kihlstadius, Tommy Raffo, Sandra Tate, Justin Terry, Scottie J. Wheat, Shirley Renee' Wilson and Julie Wyatt.