By The Langston University Office of Public Relations
TULSA, Okla. – The Langston University – Tulsa Campus will begin offering Public Health and Healthcare Administration majors during the 2025-2026 academic year.
These additions to the LU – Tulsa campus support Langston University’s commitment to expanding the healthcare workforce not just in the Tulsa community, but also throughout the state of Oklahoma and beyond.
These additional programs added to LU – Tulsa expand learning opportunities for working adults, older learners and returning students to pursue a degree with the flexibility and support needed for their busy lives and career goals.
Assistant Professor Dr. Sandra Brown said the classes in the Langston University School of Nursing and Health Professions are designed to focus on the practical application of public health and healthcare management theories, offering real-world and dynamic teaching-learning experiences.
“We provide an interdisciplinary approach to learning,” Dr. Brown said. “Healthcare leaders can no longer afford to learn and work in silos. Interdisciplinary professional education is critical to understanding the multiple roles in healthcare, is essential in fostering mutual respect, and helps to enhance patient outcomes.”
Healthcare administrators are crucial for the efficient and effective operation of healthcare facilities, while public health professionals are critical for protecting and improving community health by focusing on disease prevention, health promotion and equitable access to healthcare.
Because of the importance of these programs, they will have a significant impact on the Tulsa area by producing a more skilled and better-prepared workforce to meet the growing demand in the healthcare industry. With a projected job growth rate of about 28% – one of the highest in the nation – there is no indication of a slowdown. By equipping professionals with advanced knowledge and practical skills, the public health and healthcare administration programs will contribute to enhancing the overall quality of care in the communities of Tulsa and surrounding areas.
Dr. Teressa Hunter, Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions, expressed her enthusiasm for the expansion.
“We are proud to expand Langston University’s presence in Tulsa by offering degree programs in Public Health and Healthcare Administration,” Dr. Hunter said. “These new majors reflect our strategic focus on workforce development and health equity throughout Oklahoma.”
With a low faculty-to-student ratio, students enrolled in the Public Health and Healthcare Administration majors will have more one-on-one learning opportunities. This creates a highly engaged and supportive learning environment. Students interested in these programs can expect a dynamic and enriching education led by experienced, compassionate faculty who are committed to student success.
Enrollment is now open for Healthcare Administration and Public Health classes at LU-Tulsa:
Healthcare Administration Courses:
HA 3253 – Introduction to Healthcare Administration
HA 3063 – Introduction to Gerontology
Public Health Courses:
PUH 2333 – Introduction to Public Health
PUH 2313 – Global Health
If you are currently a student at Langston University, you may enroll in these classes by contacting LU-Tulsa Campus Advisor Ms. Deborah O’Guin at deborah.oguin@langston.edu and at (918) 887-8123. You may also reach out to Langston Campus Advisor Ms. Carolyn Johnson at carolyn.s.johnson@langston.edu.
If you are not currently a student at Langston University, you may apply at the Langston University website.
Every year on Mother’s Day, Dr. Emily Patterson Harris gets a call from one of her former students.
When that student was younger, he attended and dropped out of two colleges. Dr. Harris wouldn’t have it.
“It took me two years to talk him into coming to Langston University and giving it another try,” Dr. Harris said. “And he did. We had some rough times in there, but he finished, and he calls me on Mother’s Day.”
Not all of her student stories are as friendly.
Once, while walking down the stairs at the LU-Tulsa Campus, a student stopped Dr. Harris to talk. He was a student who sometimes struggled to balance his schoolwork with his responsibilities as a father, but Dr. Harris knew he was capable of it and always made sure to let him know it.
“He stopped me, and he said, ‘Well, I want you to know that I’m going to graduate, if for no other reason than to get you off of my back!’” Dr. Harris said. She smiled and responded with an upbeat, “OK!”
That student did graduate, and he went on to earn his master’s degree. She still sees him occasionally and always makes the time to talk with him.
Dr. Harris has countless stories like these because she’s been working with students for over 40 years. She has worked tirelessly to develop well-defined and relevant programs that will help students get jobs after graduation, and she has dedicated countless hours to making sure students make it to graduation. From working with them in the classroom to advising those who left to figure out how to come back, Dr. Harris doesn’t give up on her students. She cares about them, and she knows that for many, earning their degree will change their life.
Education is Transformative
Dr. Harris has always believed in the power of education, and she understands better than most that the transformative effects of earning a degree can be felt for generations. Her own family is a prime example. Her maternal grandmother, Emily Alford, only had an 8th grade education, but she was determined to send her children to college. They came to Langston University.
Violet Alford, Dr. Harris’ mother, graduated from Langston University with a B.S. in Business in 1950.
Dr. Harris’ mother, Violet, graduated from Langston University in 1950 with a B.S. in Business. Her father, Lee V. Patterson, Sr., graduated from LU that same year with a B.S. in Industrial Arts. They both had successful teaching careers in Oklahoma, and they made sure their children understood education was important. The message was echoed by Dr. Harris’ aunts and uncles throughout her childhood, and she and her cousins eventually passed the message along to their children, too.
Today, the younger generations of the family understand education is transformative. Dr. Harris’ son Erick said they all expect to go on to earn the highest-level degrees available for their chosen professions. Four generations after Emily Alford, the average degree in the family is a masters.
“I go back to that initial decision that my grandmother made that a college education was important,” Dr. Harris said. “That one decision has impacted generations of my family.”
It also allowed Dr. Harris to impact thousands of others.
Dr. Harris graduated from her father’s alma mater, Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but she did not follow in her parents’ footsteps to attend Langston University. Instead, she chose to attend Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and her experiences there reinforced her beliefs about the power of HBCUs. She went on to earn her Master of Library and Information Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo before moving to Texas to serve as a librarian at Houston Community College.
After a three-year stint in Houston, Dr. Harris came home to Oklahoma. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Roosevelt Mack, she officially joined the Lion Pride as a librarian at the LU-Tulsa Campus in 1981.
Building Something
Langston University’s Tulsa campus opened in 1979. It was the first public institution to offer graduate and upper level higher education courses in Tulsa.
The Langston University-Tulsa Campus had been established just two years prior when Dr. Harris joined the staff.
It was the first public institution to offer upper-level higher education classes in Tulsa, and in 1982, it worked together with Oklahoma State University (OSU), the University of Oklahoma (OU) and Northeastern State University (NSU) to form the University Center at Tulsa. Still a firm believer in the importance of education, Dr. Harris was excited to be a part of bringing access to higher education to her hometown.
Serving as a librarian for all academic programs gave Dr. Harris an opportunity to work closely with the students in Tulsa, and she found she enjoyed getting to know them while helping them access the materials they needed for their classes. She was good at her job, and she was soon asked to move to the Langston Campus to serve as the Acting Director of the G. Lamar Harrison Library while the school looked for a permanent director.
When she returned to LU-Tulsa a year later, she knew she was ready to take on more responsibility.
She transitioned from the library to a position as an academic counselor. It was around this time that Dr. Wessylyne A. Simpson, Dr. Harris’ aunt who was then the Dean of the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences (SOEBS), was working to expand the program offerings at the Tulsa Campus. Dr. Harris worked with Dr. Simpson, SOEBS faculty and Diana Sharp to bring the Teacher Education program to Tulsa.
“We worked on paperwork and made sure we had all the bylaws and everything set up before we could start recruiting students,” said Sharp, who still works at LU-Tulsa as an administrative assistant. “We all put our heads together and started the program here, and it’s taken off ever since.”
Diana Sharp (right) has worked with Dr. Harris since she joined the LU-Tulsa staff in 1983.
Sharp liked working with Dr. Harris right from the start. When they first met in 1983, Sharp’s first impression was that Dr. Harris was a peppy, happy-go-lucky person with whom it was very easy to talk. Forty years later, Sharp said that’s still how she’d describe her.
LU Tulsa’s Teach Education program was the first of many projects Sharp and Dr. Harris would work on together over the years, and Sharp said she always appreciated Dr. Harris’ positive attitude and willingness to try several approaches until they found the one that would work. She also appreciated that Dr. Harris knew how to leave work at work, allowing them to form a personal friendship in addition to their professional one.
Thanks to their hard work, they brought the Teacher Education program to LU-Tulsa in 1985. The program was housed on the seventh floor of the building they shared with OSU at 440 S. Houston St., and Dr. Harris took on the role of Associate Director for Teacher Education at LU-Tulsa.
For 12 years, she supervised the teacher education program at the Tulsa Campus. She loved working with students and continued to serve as an advisor. In 1986, she also began teaching as an assistant professor in SOEBS, focusing mostly on psychology and education courses.
She went back to school and earned her Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration from OSU in 1989, and she said she is eternally grateful to the late Dr. Mack for his continual support throughout this time as she juggled her work and doctoral coursework. She also wanted to thank Dr. Ernest L. Holloway, LU’s longest-serving president, and Dr. C. Gary Crooms.
“There’ve been powerful leaders, master teachers and mentors that encouraged me and were great at their chosen fields,” Dr. Harris said. “The late Dr. Holloway continually focused on challenges as opportunities. Dr. Crooms taught me to look at those challenges from multiple perspectives.”
Dr. Harris finished her doctorate, completed additional coursework in Behavioral Sciences, and became certified to teach Social Studies, Language Arts and Library Media. She took her mentors’ lessons as well as everything she’d learned from her own classroom experiences as both a teacher and student to try to continually improve her own classes.
“What I loved about teaching is just the fact that there’s always more information,” Dr. Harris said. “And I’m a librarian, so I love looking for information. You can never get tired of finding new things or new ways of doing things, and sometimes your students will send you off in a different direction.”
Students First
Dr. Harris (far right) served as the Associate Vice President for the LU-Tulsa Campus for almost 12 years.
Dr. Harris was dedicated to her work, and that’s something to which her family can attest. Growing up, her two sons spent much of their free time at the LU-Tulsa Campus and witnessed how hard their mother worked for the students there.
One day, an 8-year-old Erick approached Dr. Virginia Schoats, the campus site director, and told her as much.
“My mom was always working hard,” Erick said. “I had just found out what the word ‘promotion’ meant, and once I realized that I said, ‘Oh, well she deserves one of those.’ And because (Dr. Schoats) was her boss I thought, ‘She’s the one that can give it to her.’”
Not long after, Dr. Schoats did recommend Dr. Harris for a promotion.
In 1997, she became the Associate Vice President for LU-Tulsa, the person who ran the campus. She also served as the Institutional Representative for Langston University to the University Center at Tulsa, advocating for the needs of LU students and faculty while working to improve access to higher education for all Tulsans.
Though her duties and responsibilities changed, her goal stayed the same: to guide students to degree completion.
At this time, the average age of the students at LU-Tulsa was about 34. Dr. Harris recognized early on that their needs would be different than the needs of students at the Langston Campus, so she tried to keep their work and familial responsibilities in mind. Under her leadership, the faculty and staff in Tulsa worked to make it as feasible as possible for non-traditional students to take classes. They offered everything from a bookstore to a registrar’s office on campus so students wouldn’t have to make the drive to the Langston Campus.
“We had it set up making sure that once they got out from work, we had every avenue for (students) to be able to take courses so that they would still be able to graduate,” Sharp said. “We made sure the students were happy and taken care of, no matter how many different hats we had to wear.”
Dr. Harris’ motto was to meet students where they were and never take anything personally, and she gave that advice to her student teachers as well as her faculty.
She understood that students, the same as everyone, had challenges in their lives outside of class and were sometimes prone to take that out on their teachers. But she also knew she had to look past that in order to assist them, which she was determined to do.
“We’re all works in progress,” Dr. Harris said. “I emphasize that we each have our own individual paths.”
Dr. Harris has always done everything in her power to help students make it to graduation.
Students drop out of college for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they don’t feel they have time to go to class. Sometimes they can’t afford it. Sometimes they just don’t want to do it anymore. If a student dropped out of LU-Tulsa, Dr. Harris wanted to know why.
She would contact them to follow up on why they chose to leave school. Then she would brainstorm solutions to help them come back.
“She would make those calls, and once she got them here, she would do all the rest of it,” Sharp said. “She was making sure that students were taken care of and just trying to get them to realize that, you know, ‘You’re so close. Don’t lose this.’”
Many students returned to school thanks to Dr. Harris’ efforts, and many other students stayed in school for the same reasons.
Dr. Harris recalled that once, an alumnus whom she hadn’t seen in years walked up to her and abruptly told her that he used to hate her. Unflappable as always, she simply responded, “Oh, you did?” He said he really did.
He told her he used to complain about all the work she made them do in her classes. He didn’t appreciate all the readings, essays and other homework she assigned. It made him resent her during his time as a student.
“And then he said, ‘I just wanted to tell you that I earned my masters,’” Dr. Harris said. “And he told me the program he’d gone through, and he said, ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I would not have made it through that program. And I just wanted to come back and share that with you.’
“That’s the beauty, I think, about Langston University, no matter the campus. There is just a history of balancing those two things of nurturing a student but also having great expectations for those students. ‘LU graduates around the globe serve as leaders, innovators and engaged citizens,’ to quote our vision statement.”
A Lasting Legacy
Dr. Ruth Ray Jackson said Dr. Harris embodies the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., motto: Service to All Mankind.
In 2008, Dr. Harris became the “Gear Up” Program Director and Coordinator for the Department of Psychology at LU-Tulsa. She worked closely with Tulsa Public Schools to design and deliver programs meant to encourage college attendance and completion at Tulsa-area middle and high schools while continuing her work as a professor and the leader of the psychology program in Tulsa.
In 2018, she was appointed Chair of the Department of Psychology for all LU campuses, and in 2019, she became Dean of the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences. She has also served, when the need arose, as Acting Dean of University Libraries. Throughout it all, she has continued her efforts to help students learn and make it to graduation.
“Dr. Harris has done a phenomenal job,” President Ruth Ray Jackson said. “Even in her role as Dean, she continues to advise students and to meet with transfer students. Of course, she’s now in a position where she’s solving problems and listening to complaints and concerns from both students and faculty, but she’s consistently energized and ready to meet somebody and help them get to where they want to go.”
Dr. Harris has become known for the positive energy she brings to projects and her willingness to try several routes until she finds the one that will work. Dr. Jackson called her a creative problem solver, and she’s had a lot of experience doing it.
During her 44 years at Langston University, Dr. Harris has tackled lots of challenges, from redesigning curricula to helping develop completely new ones. Although she had almost 40 years of teaching experience, she continued trying out different teaching strategies right up until she taught her last class in 2024. She did it because she knew there was always room for improvement.
Dr. Harris knows Langston University inside and out, and she has made a lasting impact.
“My mother is one of the most encouraging people that I’ve ever known,” Erick said. “She supports you, but there’s a nice edge to her that will push you and encourage you to keep moving forward. And that’s what she’s done at Langston University.”
Throughout her career, Dr. Harris has been the model of a servant-leader, both in her personal and professional life.
Her younger son, Christopher, said he’s grateful to have grown up with Dr. Harris as a role model because she inspires him to try to be a leader in his own industry, noting that he often models his own behavior after her in professional settings. He also recognized that his mother’s career at LU has always gone beyond her job descriptions.
“You recognize the sacrifice almost after the fact,” Christopher said. “She could have had positions and titles that would’ve paid more at other institutions and in other states, but not everything is about financial gain. It’s having us grow up around our grandparents, and from a career perspective, it’s saying that you can have a positive impact on people’s lives and be that role model of what leadership looks like.”
She is a longtime member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and Dr. Jackson, a fellow AKA, said Dr. Harris perfectly embodies their sorority’s motto: Service to All Mankind.
Dr. Harris said it’s not hard to find ways to serve because they will usually find you. Now, after four decades of service to Dear Langston, she is finally ready to retire. Her last day will be June 30, though she jokes it will really be “the 12th of never.”
“I’m sure I will (miss teaching),” Dr. Harris said. “But I’m sure that I can find all kinds of creative things to do.
“I say, ‘Don’t look back. You’re not going in that direction.’”
Dr. Harris will retire from Langston University after 44 years of service on June 30.
At 10 a.m. on a bright and sunny Monday morning less than two weeks into his summer vacation, Tomas was back in the classroom.
The rising junior from Southeastern High School in Oklahoma City listened excitedly as Dr. Lindsay Davis explained the Quiz Bowl rules to a lecture hall full of students from the 2025 Langston University Math and Science Academy. Like many of his fellow Academy students, Tomas was ready to compete for bragging rights in the fast-paced trivia game.
They were split into two teams that rotated in groups of four to compete head-to-head answering questions ranging from pop culture trivia to properly solving math equations. In no time at all, the room was filled with excited shouts and laughter as the students raced to their buzzers, trying to be the first to correctly answer a question and earn points for their team.
“Currently, since we’re learning about the Quiz Bowl, I’m going to try my best to excel in that,” Tomas said. “And just overall, I’m trying to improve my skills and learn new things with my teachers.”
Students play Quiz Bowl at the 2025 Langston University Math and Science Academy.
The Quiz Bowl was just one of many activities these high school students participated in during the Math and Science Academy. For two weeks, the 25 students who made up this year’s cohort lived on LU’s Langston campus and got a taste of what life is like in college. They spent their days learning about math, science and technology and their evenings relaxing and having fun.
The students took classes on public speaking, ACT preparation, math, biology, chemistry and technology. They also went on outings such as touring the E. Kika de la Garza Goat Research Center, a day trip to the Oklahoma Science Museum in Oklahoma City, and a field trip to a water park. In the evenings, there were movie nights and other recreational activities.
“What I especially like here is that while they are giving you work, they’re more into their lessons,” Tomas said. “They’re more into teaching. Like, I have this one teacher, Dr. Abraham, and while in the middle of lectures, if you have questions, he makes sure to answer all of them. That’s really cool because the teachers here invest so much of their time and knowledge into the students that even if you didn’t want to do the work, you’re still going to learn.”
For more than 30 years, Langston University has hosted the Math and Science Academy in the summers to inspire high schoolers to pursue careers in STEM. Dr. Lindsay Davis took over as Summer Camp Director for the Academy three years ago, but long before that, she was a student herself.
As a high schooler in Oklahoma City, Dr. Davis attended the Math and Science Academy every summer. That’s where she first met Dr. John Coleman and Dr. Alonzo Peterson, who were LU faculty members in chemistry and mathematics, respectively. It was the first time she had ever met a Black chemist or a Black mathematician, and it was also the first time she realized those were careers she could pursue if she wished.
Each summer, Dr. Davis was excited to return to the Academy and learn more about math and chemistry until she was finally able to enroll in the Chemistry program at Langston University. She went on to become the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Texas at Arlington in 2021 before returning to Langston University as a faculty member working under Dr. Coleman, Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences; and Dr. Peterson, Vice President of Academic Affairs.
“Oftentimes, I tell people that Math and Science Academy is what inspired me to become a chemist,” Dr. Davis said. “Because I’ve been through the program, I understood the impact that it had. So, my goal (as director) was to be very intentional, to plant seeds in the students because it was once a seed planted in me.”
Chloe, a rising junior at Baton Rouge Magnet High School in Louisiana, has been inspired to explore new career paths thanks to her time at the Academy.
Before coming to the Academy, Chloe was thinking about becoming either an interior designer or a physical therapist, but she hadn’t made up her mind. The Academy gave her an opportunity to learn more about other fields she hadn’t considered.
In her technology class, she learned about different types of coding and had an opportunity to practice coding on a board while building a smart farm. As someone who loves lotion, one of her favorite activities was making lotion in her chemistry class.
“(The Math and Science Academy) is all about STEM, so it really gives me an inside look into what it’s like,” Chloe said. “The teachers talk about what they do, and the different fields and majors you can go into. You get to do a lot of different things.”
This year, in addition to the traditional academic and social elements of the Academy, Dr. Davis wanted to add professional development and community building elements. She added Intro to Public Speaking to their daily class schedules and brought in faculty and staff members to serve as guest speakers on topics like financial literacy and navigating financial aid in college.
In an effort to be more connected to the local community, this year’s cohort also attended a Memorial Day program at the Wm Conrad Veterans Memorial Gardens in the Town of Langston. Later in the week, they completed a service-learning project to help beautify T.G. Green Park in the Town of Langston.
“I think that the Math and Science Academy can help in many ways,” Dr. Davis said. “Not only academically, socially and personally, but we had a chance to get the students into the community and to do some good work.”
Another important element of the camp was preparing students for the ACT.
On their first day, the students took a practice ACT to help give them a baseline from which to start. For some of the students, it was their first time taking an ACT or SAT test. Every day, they attended an ACT preparation class in the mornings, and on the last day of the Academy, they took the official ACT exam.
On average, each student improved by three points from their practice test score.
The opportunity to improve his ACT score was something Tomas was happy about because he’d only taken the test once before the Academy. Improving his score was important to him because he knew he wanted to pursue a career as a forensic chemist, and a good ACT score will help him get into a good program.
Throughout the Academy, though, he learned a lot more than just how to improve his ACT. He was particularly excited to discover a new interest in pathology thanks to his biology class with Dr. Abraham. He learned the difference between epidemiology and pathology, and it’s already changed his perspective on his potential future career.
Experiences like this are part of what allows the Math and Science Academy to have such a profound impact on students, and it’s why Tomas said he encourages other students to apply.
“It was a very good experience,” Tomas said. “This camp is amazing, and it can teach you so many new things. In one week, you learn stuff that it would take regular teachers weeks to teach. It’s just amazing.”
The Math and Science Academy is funded by the Oklahoma Regents for Higher Education, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
Langston University has been designated a Research College and University by the Carnegie Classification of Higher Education Institutions, one of only 216 institutions nationwide to hold this classification.
“This recognition highlights the hard work and dedication of our researchers, faculty and staff who strive to strengthen the academy,” said Dr. Alonzo Peterson, the Vice President for Academic Affairs. “We have very smart people at Langston University. I am always inspired when I visit the labs or sit down with my colleagues.”
Faculty, staff and students at Langston University conduct research in a variety of areas across multiple disciplines. The university is known internationally for its E. (Kika) de la Garza American Institute for Goat Research, but it also has research programs for horticulture and agronomy, aquaculture and aquaponics, biotechnology, and agribusiness and rural economic development, to name a few. Notably, the university’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center was renewed for a third 5-year cycle of funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research in late 2023.
Since 1973, the Carnegie Classification has been the leading framework for recognizing and describing institutional diversity in higher education across the United States. Administered by the American Council on Education (ACE), the Carnegie Classifications are updated every three years and give institutions designations based on their sizes, types of degrees conferred and many other such characteristics.
The amount and types of research conducted at institutions have long been of interest to ACE and the Carnegie Foundation, and the Carnegie Classification traditionally reserved the coveted Research 1 (R1) and Research 2 (R2) designations for doctoral institutions with high research spending. For 2025, the Carnegie Classification has updated its metrics to provide clearer distinctions between R1 and R2 institutions while also adding a third research designation for non-doctoral institutions: Research College and University.
“On average, institutions in this category spend at least $2.5 million annually on research and development,” said President Ruth Ray Jackson. “Langston University’s research expenditures totaled $10,505,000 in fiscal year 2023. This recognition underscores Langston University’s commitment to expanding research excellence and advancing our institutional impact.”
The threshold for an R2 designation is $5 million in research spending annually, which Langston University exceeds, and at least 20 research doctorates awarded annually. Langston University offers one doctoral program, the Doctor of Physical Therapy, which is a professional rather than research doctorate.
There are more than 4,300 higher education institutions in the United States, and of these, 542 institutions received some level of research designation. Seven of these institutions are in Oklahoma and 40 are Historically Black Colleges or Universities. All 19 of the 1890 land-grant institutions, including Langston University, have received a research designation.
Yellow squash, zucchini, bell peppers and parmesan cheese. These are ingredients used to make a simple but nutritious squash skillet like the ones 4-H students made in the Junior Master Gardeners program at Langston University.
Junior Master Gardeners, or JMG, is an international program and curriculum that teaches kids about growing their own food to support healthy lifestyles. Kids learn about everything from the best times of year to plant seeds for different fruits and vegetables to the proper knife skills needed to prepare the veggies for cooking.
The curriculum is filled with hands-on activities and opportunities to try new foods, making it popular among the members of the Roaring Adventures 4-H Club in Langston, Oklahoma.
“I think that’s what was so important about 4-H is that that’s what they promote,” said Donnesha Williams, the 4-H educator in charge of the Roaring Adventures Club. “It’s positive youth development through hands-on learning, through hands-on engagements.”
4-H, the largest youth development program in the United States, is operated by Cooperative Extension at public land grant institutions across the country, including at Langston University. The Sherman Lewis School of Agriculture and Applied Sciences operates three 4-H clubs in Oklahoma, providing opportunities for kids from elementary through high school to engage with their communities and learn life skills.
The Roaring Adventures 4-H Club teaches its members prepare a green bean dish during their Junior Master Gardeners program.
LU’s largest 4-H club is Roaring Adventures, which has 25 members ranging from ages 5 to 14. Many of its members are part of Coyle Public Schools, which operate virtually on Friday mornings, so the club meets every Friday afternoon at the Horticulture Education and Research Center (HERC) on LU’s Langston campus. There the kids participate in a variety of fun and educational activities, like JMG.
Because Roaring Adventures is based in Langston, Oklahoma, Williams takes advantage of as many of the university’s resources for her programming as she can. In addition to working with the HERC for JMG, she works with other departments to host activities like drone demonstrations and a Goat, Sheep and Haire Day. Another valuable resource for Williams are the LU students.
About 20 LU students from various organizations and majors volunteer to help Williams with the Roaring Adventures Club each semester. After completing their volunteer certification training, the college students help the 4-H-ers with activities ranging from making ice cream in mason jars to preparing for the annual fishing derby in the fall.
“We lean on (our college students) so much, and luckily, they love it,” Williams said. “They’re very hands-on. They adore the kids and the kids adore them.”
Down the highway, Amir Rashidi is in charge of the Eastern Pasture Community Club in Spencer, Oklahoma. The club has 15 members, mostly around 12 to 13 years old, and like the kids in Roaring Adventures, they participate in community events and do lots of hands-on educational activities.
Because it’s located much further from the Langston campus, the Eastern Pasture Club doesn’t have access to some of the resources Roaring Adventures does, like the HERC. So Rashidi works with local community partners like the Minnis Lakeview Recreation Center to put on programming for the kids, such as their recent canning workshop. A piece of programming Rashidi is especially passionate about is his horses.
Rashidi puts on demonstrations for his 4-H-ers where he teaches them about proper grooming and care for the horses.
A rodeo participant since childhood, Rashidi likes to incorporate his horses into lessons and activities for the Eastern Pasture Club. He puts on demonstrations where he teaches the kids about proper grooming and care for the horses, such as how to clean their hooves and what to feed them. He said it felt natural to include the horses in his club’s programming because of 4-H’s agricultural ties, and the kids love getting to see and pet the animals.
“Some kids, they’re not blessed with the opportunity to have interactions with horses,” Rashidi said. “So, I’m just trying to give these children more of this positive interaction just because they might not ever come in contact with a horse again. I’m trying to give them an experience so that they can have a positive outlook that one day they can possibly be a young cowboy or cowgirl.”
Roaring Adventures and Eastern Pasture are always welcoming new members to their clubs, and Williams encouraged any students or parents interested in 4-H to reach out for more information. In the future, LU Extension hopes to open more clubs around Oklahoma to continue to bring these opportunities to more children.
By Jet Turner, Assistant Director of Communications
Dr. John Coleman received a call from the fourteenth president of Langston University, Dr. Ernest Holloway, in 1993. Holloway’s gregariousness led their conversation all over the place, but his message was clear: the students at Dear Langston needed additional support.
Coleman left his position as an assistant professor at Hudson Community College in New Jersey after that summer and journeyed back to his home state of Oklahoma. He only planned to stay for a couple of years, but his dedication to helping students be their best kept him on Langston University’s campus. After 32 years of service and mentorship, Coleman will retire at the conclusion of the 2024-2025 academic year.
His career as the Chair of the Department of Chemistry at LU has been dedicated to teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and equally to seeing that students learn to excel in academics and life. His influence can be seen all over the University and, more importantly, in its students.
Beginnings
Coleman grew up around educational excellence in Boley, Oklahoma.
Today, the historically Black town might seem unassuming, but when Coleman was growing up in the 1940s and ’50s, the town was described by Booker T. Washington as the “finest Black town in the world.” Many of the individuals Coleman grew up around had their doctoral degrees or some other form of higher education, including his parents.
Boley’s significance in education parallels no other Black town in the nation, historian Currie Ballard said in a 2017 article by The Oklahoma Eagle.
This meant Coleman was always surrounded by excellent teachers. One of whom was Holloway, his future president, who taught chemistry at Boley Junior High in the 1950s.
“Holloway knew what was happening in Boley and how we got prepared,” Coleman said. “You always have someone who is going to help you. You didn’t have to rely on just your resources at home.”
Community is where Boley found its strength, and Coleman carried that lesson with him throughout his academic career.
Coleman always expected to go to college, and Langston University was a natural choice.
Coleman began his freshman year at Langston University during the 1961-1962 academic year.
He began his freshman term during the 1961-1962 academic year. Buildings like Sanford Hall and Moore Hall still stood proudly where they are today, although their functionality was different from their modern day uses.
During his time at LU, he served as the freshman class president and was a brother of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Even though LU had been around for almost 75 years by the time Coleman graduated in 1965 with his bachelor of science in chemistry and mathematics, students still had to march at the Oklahoma State Capitol every year to fight for the university to remain open. Coleman was an active participant in these efforts.
Just as obtaining his undergraduate degree was expected for Coleman, working toward an advanced degree was a natural next step. He began his PhD in Theoretical Physical Chemistry at the University of Oklahoma in 1972.
OU was still integrating, and undergraduate Black students especially were facing discrimination at the hands of some students and employees. Coleman became a graduate advisor to the Alpha Phi Alpha chapter on campus during this time.
“There were cannons pointed south and all kinds of things going on,” Coleman said. “But we did a lot of things with students to try to help students feel more comfortable. We did a lot of tutoring. We did a lot of whatever, trying to make the students come in and be successful.”
Growing up in a Black town and attending a Historically Black University helped Coleman understand the importance of community. At every opportunity, Coleman shared that community with others.
Coleman graduated from Langston University in 1965.
He earned his PhD in 1976 and concluded his postdoctoral studies at OU in 1978.
Coleman was briefly a researcher at Halliburton Company before traveling east to become an assistant professor at several local institutions. First at Bergen County Community College in Paramus, New Jersey; then at City University of New York, and finally at Hudson Community College, where he received that call from Holloway.
Returning Home
Upon returning to Langston University, Coleman immediately got to work.
Coleman’s years of experience teaching STEM courses provided insights into the problems that frequently impede student learning. He encountered students’ wide-spread practice of what he calls “plug ‘n play.” Plug ’n play is when students use a solved “example” problem as a model and plug in variables from the new problem to find a solution. This bypasses the need to learn and apply core concepts.
Coleman developed and adopted instructional strategies embedded in a process he calls Competency Performance Recording for Learning (CPR-L). His CPR-L teaching and learning process has had a positive impact on student academic performance for his over 30-year career at Langston University and is the basis for how he approaches educating his students.
Dr. Alonzo Peterson, Vice President for Academic Affairs, witnesses Coleman’s commitment to Langston University’s students almost daily. Coleman can often be found on campus until 9 p.m. or later, depending on how many students still need help.
“He’s by far one of the smartest people I know,” Peterson said. “His ideas are very, very innovative. He spends a lot of time with students, hours and hours.
“One of the things I recognize from his tutoring processes is that he doesn’t give students answers. Students may ask, ‘how do you do this?’ and he responds, ‘well, how do you think we do it?’ And then he will go back and talk through the problem for them to solve it, not him. Some people are dispensers of knowledge, he is a facilitator of knowledge.”
In 2003, Coleman received a grant from the National Science Foundation which started Langston’s Integrated Network College (LINC) for STEM program. This program provided scholarships for students in STEM fields and required them to participate in research on campus and across the country. They would then present that research at conferences.
The goal of the LINC program was to produce more minority students in STEM fields who would then earn their doctoral degrees. This program was exceedingly successful.
LINC boasted a 92% graduation rate, with 60% of those students going on to earn graduate degrees. Many of these were earned at major universities that include Vanderbilt, University of Kansas, University of Texas, Baylor University, Johns Hopkins and more.
The students’ participation in summer research internships at institutions that include Johns Hopkins, University of Texas, Stanford, Cal Tech, University of California at Berkley, University of Oklahoma and more. Their research work generated over 300 Abstracts. Their participation in competitive research presentation events throughout the U.S. earned over 50 top awards.
These STEM professionals now hold prominent positions in both industry and education, including achieving success as entrepreneurs.
According to RTI International, of the STEM PhDs awarded in the U.S. in 2021, 5% went to Black scientists, even though the U.S. population is 12% Black, showing the disparity in the field.
Coleman was also encouraging students to stick with the STEM field, even if they did not think it would be for them.
Dr. Ryan Johnson, a former chemistry major and now professor at Langston University, was one of these students.
When Johnson began attending LU in the early 2010s, he was not interested in attending college, much less becoming a chemist. Even though he showed up to Dear Langston as an undeclared major, a mistake in the system had him listed as a chemistry major.
Wanting to change his major, Johnson was told to speak with Coleman before deciding.
That one conversation changed his life.
“He convinced me to stay,” Johnson said. “He told me I was doing well in my other STEM classes, and I was on track to take Chem I anyway. I took it the following semester and ended up staying with chemistry. Kind of weird, right? How those little conversations can change the trajectory of your life.”
As part of the LINC program, students had to at least apply for graduate schools as their undergraduate degrees concluded. Johnson had no intention of earning his doctorate, but another conversation with Coleman convinced him to apply to Louisiana State University, one of the leading producers of doctoral-prepared Black chemists in the nation.
Coleman was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. during his time at Langston University.
Innovation was another one of Coleman’s missions in the classroom.
Coleman was an early adopter of integrating technology into the classroom at Langston University, something that stood out to Dr. Byron Quinn when he was being taught by Coleman at Langston University.
“Even back in the early ’90s, at the beginning, he was at the forefront of this,” Quinn said. “He was working with really the first iteration, first generation, of tablets and PCs in the classroom, so that students could write and do homework on them and digitally turn them in.”
But Coleman’s impact is much farther reaching than the borders of Langston University’s campus.
About a year after his return to teaching at LU, Coleman set out to build strong science and math foundations when he received a grant to establishthe Langston University Summer Math and Science Academy.
It was here, when she was 14 years old, Dr. Lindsay Davis met a Black chemist for the first time in her life.
She hated chemistry.
“It was the hardest thing ever,” Davis said. “But Dr. Coleman had such an eloquent way of communicating chemistry. And so, by the end of that camp, I knew I wanted to be a chemist.”
She attended the Math and Science Academy many more summers after that. Her familiarity with the campus, its scholarship opportunities and its faculty led Davis to enroll at Langston University.
She took her first class with Coleman, Organic Chemistry, her sophomore year. It is still the most difficult course she has ever taken.
More than a third of black STEM PhD holders earn their undergraduate degrees at HBCUs according to American Institutes for Research.
But Coleman’s student-centric approach helped her through the class. She took three more classes with him throughout her time at LU and, after graduating, like so many of his students, was convinced by Coleman to pursue her doctoral degree.
“That took a lot of convincing, and there were a few mechanisms that helped me to go off and produce my PhD,” Davis said. “But Dr. Coleman being the first chemist I ever met inspired me to get a PhD.
“When you are able to see the representation in front of you, I think it either consciously or subconsciously inspires you.”
Because of Coleman’s influence, in 2021 Davis went on to become the first Black chemist to graduate with their PhD from the University of Texas at Arlington.
Legacy
Johnson, Quinn and Davis are just a handful of the students Coleman not only encouraged to go and earn their doctoral degrees, but to come back and teach at Langston University.
Quinn is currently the Chair of the Biology Department at Langston University, working closely with Coleman each day and utilizing the lessons he learned in using technology in the classroom to instruct his students and conduct world-renowned research.
Johnson just returned to Langston University as a professor in the chemistry department and is now providing the same mentorship, guidance and expectations Coleman gave to him as a student.
Coleman was voted “Most Intellectual” in 1965 alongside Louvenia Stidham.
Davis is not only a professor in the chemistry department but also leads the Math and Science Academy at Langston University, bringing her journey full circle. Now, she gets to be the same inspiration to the students who attend each summer that Coleman was to her as a teenager. She may even be the first Black chemist some of them meet.
“I hope I even have (a legacy),” Coleman laughed.
But his legacy is unmistakable. Coleman has built his own community of educational excellence at Langston University, in the STEM field and across the world.
His mission has been to ensure Dear Langston’s students have the support they need to lay the foundation for a brighter future. Now, Coleman gets to wrap up his career as the Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, where he is still buildingprograms and methods that will lay firm foundations and help educate students for the long term.
Langston University President Dr. Ruth Ray Jackson, who formerly served as the Vice President for Academic Affairs, has seen the impact of Coleman’s time at LU. She said regardless of his position, he has intentionally remained engaged with his students, ensuring they are well-prepared when they leave Langston University.
“I think that his lasting legacy really is his quest for knowledge, not just for himself, but for his students.
It’s always a special moment to watch a loved one walk across the stage at graduation, but for the Barnett family, this year’s Langston University commencement ceremony was doubly special.
Mother-Daughter duo Cerita and Alexis Barnett both graduated with their master’s degrees in rehabilitation counseling this May, and their family and friends cheered loudly from near and afar as the two walked across the stage together as proud members of the Class of 2024.
“We laughed a lot, we studied a lot,” Alexis said. “We learned how to work as a team to grow.”
Alexis and Cerita didn’t always plan to go to school together.
A 1992 graduate of Langston University, Cerita wanted to work in a public school system, particularly with at risk students, to help provide guidance to young people as they navigate their next steps in life. After earning her bachelor’s in sociology, she intended to earn a master’s degree in pursuit of this goal. But life had other plans for her.
Certia Barnett graduated from Langston University in 1992 with her bachelor’s in sociology. Thirty-two years later, she graduated from LU again with her master’s in rehabilitation counseling.
Cerita got married, found a job and had kids. Her family became her priority, but she never gave up the idea of pursuing her master’s.
“I decided, okay, I’ll wait ‘til [the kids] get a little older so that it would be easier for me to actually do a program and do the homework, read the chapters, everything that was required of me,” Cerita said. “So, I was content working as a substitute teacher so that I can help still teach and guide my own children.”
As a substitute teacher in the Tulsa Public School system, Cerita had the opportunity to work with kids like she wanted, and she also had the flexibility to take an active role in her own children’s lives. That included taking an active role in their education.
In the classroom, she always tried to impress upon students the importance of taking their education seriously, and she did the same at home. She would volunteer in her kids’ classrooms, volunteer with their extracurriculars, help them with homework and do whatever she needed to help them succeed in school. And succeed they have.
Alexis graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a double major in psychology and sociology in 2021. Like her mother, Alexis knew she wanted to pursue a master’s degree.
After graduating with her bachelor’s from the University of Oklahoma, Alexis Barnett encouraged her mother to pursue their master’s degrees together.
“I know that education can open doors,” Alexis said. “So, I had my mind set on [a master’s degree]. I knew that’s something I wanted to challenge myself to do, and I’m glad I did.”
After Alexis graduated from OU, Cerita began to think it might finally be time to return to school herself. Her family, including Alexis, encouraged her. Alexis and Cerita were both interested in counseling, so they began looking to see what programs were available in the Tulsa area.
Cerita, confident in the quality educational experience she would receive at Langston University thanks to her experience as an undergraduate student, began looking into the rehabilitation counseling program at LU-Tulsa. Alexis followed suit and decided to apply, but Cerita was still hesitant about whether she was ready to return to school yet.
“I was able to encourage her to go ahead and apply after I had applied,” Alexis said. “We were able to apply around the same time, and we both got accepted to the Spring ‘22 cohort.”
Cerita smiled and nodded as she remembered how excited their family was when the two announced their decision to go to school together.
“My family was excited for me because they knew at some point, I wanted to go back to school,” Cerita said. “And they thought it was neat, ‘Mama and Alexis is going to school together!’ And actually, at one point, I was not going to tell anybody just in case I changed my mind. But my husband, Harvel…”
“He started telling people,” Alexis laughed. “He was excited.”
With the support of their family–Harvel, Alexandria, Albany and Arnetta–and friends behind them, Cerita and Alexis began their graduate school journey together.
Cerita (left) and Alexis helped and supported each other throughout the two-year rehabilitation counseling program and graduated together in May.
Thanks to the way the two-year rehabilitation counseling program is structured, Cerita and Alexis took all their classes together. While some of their classes reinforced things they had learned in their undergraduate courses, others introduced new concepts and encouraged them to look at things from new perspectives. With a built-in study-buddy, the Mother-Daughter duo tackled all their coursework head on.
After 30 years on the other side of the classroom, Cerita had to adjust to being a student again. Thankfully, Alexis was there to help.
Alexis introduced her mother to some new studying techniques, helped her relearn APA Style–which had experienced a few updates since Cerita had last used it–and helped her navigate the technology they needed to use. In return, Cerita helped Alexis talk through and simplify concepts, helped her manage her time efficiently and always provided encouragement when she needed it.
“Our relationship as students helped to reinforce what we were learning in the class,” Alexis said. “We were able to provide one another with output. And when you put two brains together, then you have a strengthened perspective.”
“It’s like old school with new school,” Cerita agreed.
They helped and supported each other through the whole program, taking turns being each other’s shoulder to lean on when needed. After two years of hard work, they graduated this spring.
With her new degree, Cerita still plans to assist people in the counseling area. Alexis would like to give back and help people. Cerita and Alexis both expressed gratitude to God for this joyous, momentous opportunity.
“We are especially grateful that our mother/grandmother Marilyn is alive and celebrating our accomplishment with us,” Alexis said.
“It felt so special to be hooded,” Cerita said. “Our experience will remain in our hearts. I knew it was going to be a challenge to get back into the regimen of studying while wearing different hats. This was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life, but God helped me through.
“What was rewarding for me was, this is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. And now it’s happening, I’m walking in it. It’s a reality. And whatever challenges came, we were able to work with it. Better together.”
Langston University and Arkansas Colleges of Health Education (ACHE) signed an education affiliation agreement on Thursday to establish the Early Assurance Program, which will create two pathways for Langston students to attend ACHE to study occupational therapy and physical therapy.
Through the new program, LU students who meet ACHE’s general and program-specific admission requirements can choose to follow one of two paths into either the Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OT) program or the Doctor of Physical Therapy (PT) program. The first pathway will guarantee a student’s placement in their program of choice while the second pathway will allow students to bypass ACHE’s initial screening process and receive a guaranteed interview for their program of choice.
“It’s so important to us that we create opportunities for our students and that when they’re here they are getting the content knowledge, the professional competency, and the personal confidence to go out and be able to evaluate options,” said Dr. Ruth Ray Jackson, President of Langston University. “Our mission is rooted in access and opportunity. We believe that this kind of partnership promotes what we were founded to do.
“The students who are here seem to have a drive that is rooted in purpose, so finding careers where they can improve the lives of other people, make the world a better place, it’s just something that I have found to be synonymous with the Langston experience. If you’re fortunate enough to receive some of our students, you’ll get to see that too.”
LU juniors can apply for the Early Assurance Program through the Office of Academic Affairs. If accepted into the program, students must complete all pre-requisite courses for the OT or PT programs and enroll at ACHE within two years.
Students pursuing the guaranteed placement pathway, in addition to meeting all admissions requirements, must also participate in the ACHE Mentoring and Achievement Preparation Program (MAP). This program, established in 2023 by the ACHE School of Occupational Therapy, School of Physical Therapy, College of Health Sciences Admissions and the Office of Diversity, is designed to educate, encourage, equip and engage diverse students from underrepresented and underserved populations considering careers in occupational therapy or physical therapy.
Students pursuing the guaranteed interview pathway must meet all ACHE admissions requirements for their given program, which can be found on the ACHE website.
“As Dean of the School of Occupational Therapy at Arkansas College of Health Education, I am thrilled for this relationship between Langston University and Arkansas College of Health Education,” Dr. Jennifer Moore said. “I have come to understand more and more in working with Langston the kind of students they have. The student from Langston has a sense of purpose, and a desire to serve their communities and to serve others, and that’s exactly the kind of student we’re looking for, and it fits our mission.
“To see that these two institutions are now collaborating is just going to be added value on both sides and frankly, I am thrilled to think about the caliber of students that Langston is going to give us in our program because it will only strengthen the School of Occupational Therapy. It will strengthen the profession of Occupational Therapy, and it will be of great value to those they serve.”
Students in the Langston University School of Nursing and Health Professions participated in white coat ceremonies at the university’s Tulsa and Langston campuses last week, officially completing an honored rite of passage for medical professionals.
The School of Nursing and Health Professions held two white coat ceremonies, one in Tulsa on Tuesday evening and one in Langston on Thursday evening. The students’ families and friends came from all over Oklahoma, the United States, and even from as far as the Bahamas to attend the ceremonies.
“The white coat ceremony is an important rite of passage for these students,” Dr. Teressa Hunter, dean of the School of Nursing and Health Professions, said during Thursday’s ceremony. “They are entering into a profession––this is not a career, it is a profession––and the goal is, in two years, we will all be back here to celebrate their pinning.”
Students from the Langston University – Langston Campus received their white coats Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024.
A white coat ceremony is a rite of passage for students entering medical professions, such as nursing. The School of Nursing and Health Professions holds white coat ceremonies when students begin their clinical studies in their junior year. Students recite an oath to acknowledge medicine’s central obligation of caring for patients and are given their white coats. White coat ceremonies are common practice throughout the United States and in 19 countries.
Thirteen students received their white coats at the LU-Tulsa ceremony on Tuesday, and 25 students received their white coats at the Langston campus ceremony on Thursday.
The School of Nursing and Health Professions offers an accredited Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) at the Langston and Tulsa campuses as well as the Ardmore Site. Additionally, the School offers an online RN to BSN program. LU’s nursing programs are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, and the nursing program has been accredited since 1987.
The online RN to BSN program is accepting applications for the fall semester through Sept. 30. The Tulsa and Ardmore sites will accept applications for Spring 2025 admission to the BSN program until Oct. 15. For more information, visit langston.edu.
Biology senior Daysha Isaac won a Scientific Merit Award at the National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) Conference in Washington D.C. this summer.
The 9th Biennial NISBRE Conference, put on by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) from June 16-19, was a showcase of the accomplishments of the NIGMS’s IDeA program. Undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, junior and senior investigators, and staff from IDeA-supported programs came together to share their research. At the conference’s end, various awards were presented, including merit awards, mentorship awards, and entrepreneurship awards.
“I used to be a student who struggled with education and could barely understand the concept, to now being a student who can properly explain a complex topic to a plethora of people,” Isaac said. “So this award means that no matter what obstacles are thrown my way, I am able to grow past them.”
A native of Arlington, Texas, Isaac has been interested in biology and medicine since she was a child. She was born with an umbilical hernia that had to be removed when she was 8, and her time in the hospital gave her an insight into what a life in medicine was like. Since then, she has worked toward her goal of becoming a doctor, and she aspires to be a pediatrician or a neonatal physician.
Daysha Isaac won a Scientific Merit Award at the National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) Conference in Washington D.C. this summer.
Isaac came to Langston University looking for a place where she could thrive with individuals who looked like her and had the same aspirations as her, and she has found a supportive community that has helped her grow as a person and a scholar.
“Being an African American in a field that is not as diverse means I have to work extremely hard to spread my name across the room,” Isaac said. “Therefore, when professors see my talent, it makes me grateful for all my hard work. It excites me when others see my potential and are able to help me network. It motivates me when I am able to expand my name across a plethora of audiences.”
Isaac’s foray into research began when she met Dr. Kj Abraham in his Honors Natural Science Biology-I class. She impressed him with her eagerness to learn, and he has been her faculty mentor for the past two years.
As a faculty mentor, Dr. Abraham introduces students like Isaac to biomedical research and helps prepare them for a career in biomedical sciences. He trains them in research techniques, teaches them fundamentals in research and helps them to build technical skills. They are also prepared to work independently on research projects. They are taught how to review research publications, write research abstracts, and make oral presentations.
Dr. Abraham introduced Isaac to the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) last year, and he said he is proud to see how much she has grown through her participation in the program.
“She was quick to learn and follows instructions very well,” Dr. Abraham said. “She was committed to her task and adapted very well to undergraduate research. Her growth was evident in the way she successfully completed her research internship at KSU and went on to win a poster prize at the Annual K-INBRE Symposium in January.”
Through K-INBRE, Isaac worked with Dr. Jocelyn McDonald at Kansas State University to do research on stalk cell movement in drosophila. She studied ovarioles in fruit fly ovaries and looked at several functions, including cell formation and the movement of stalk cells, and then marked the differences when mutations were added.
“This information allowed us to apply it to birth defects in infants,” Isaac said. “No way are we trying to cure it but gather more information about cell movement to make a connection. Such birth defects we compared it to were spina bifida and microcephaly.”
Isaac presented her research on stalk cell movement in drosophila at the NISBRE Conference.
Isaac presented this research at the K-INBRE Symposium in January, where she won an Award of Excellence in Poster Presentations, and was invited to present again at the NISBRE Conference. This time, she gave an oral presentation in addition to the poster presentation.
Isaac said she was nervous for her oral presentation, but she fought through her nerves to deliver an engaging presentation with energy and excitement. She was proud of her performance, and for good reason.
“After I presented, I was complimented many times,” Isaac said. “I was told by a professor that when I was ready to apply to graduate school to contact him, and another professor said he would want me to consider attending their medical school in Maine. I was told I brought the energy to the room, and I presented my research very well. Even with all the compliments, I still was extremely surprised that I won an award.”
Dr. Abraham said Isaac’s presentation was outstanding and that her confidence and knowledge were evident. He was not as surprised as Isaac that she won the Scientific Merit Award.
“This award shows that students from LU can be the best in the country and have proved that they can be top prize winners provided they are mentored and given opportunities,” Dr. Abraham said. “This also means that LU is on the national map in biomedical research.”
Isaac plans to continue being involved in research during her last year at Dear Langston, and she plans to apply for graduate school after graduation. She eventually plans to go to medical school.
