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Phi Kappa Phi taps UMMC faculty, students; health sciences faculty earns Call of Duty Award

Phi Kappa Phi initiates 35 UMMC faculty, students

About three dozen faculty members and students were initiated Oct. 4 into Phi Kappa Phi, the collegiate honor society recognizing academic excellence.

The 35 initiates are members of the Phi Kappa Chapter of the University of Mississippi, including faculty and students at UMMC. The nationwide honor society accepts more than 30,000 members each year on 300 campuses in the United States and the Philippines.

More than 1.5 million members have joined since its founding in 1897 at the University of Maine. It is described as “a global network of the best and brightest, a community of scholars and professionals building an enduring legacy for all generations.”

For campuses with chapters, membership is by invitation to the top 7.5 percent of juniors with at least 72 credit hours and the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students. Faculty, professional staff and alumni who have demonstrated scholarly achievement are eligible for membership also.

The chapter’s initiates are, from the Office of Academic Affairs: Dr. Ralph Didlake; School of Dentistry: Dr. David Felton, Andrew Daniel Sinclair, Rachel Griffin, Delta Stout, Andrew N. Tran; School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences: Dr. Sydney Murphy, Thien Ly Nguyen, Sara Marie Klender, Denise Gipson, Kimberly Douglas, Robert T. Wright Jr.; School of Health Related Professions: Dr. Jessica Bailey, Bo Bilello; Hannah Anderson, Toni V. Leverette, Victoria Leigh Henry, Kyle Avery Blount, Paula Champion, Hannah Martin, Katelyn Mooney; School of Medicine: Dr. Loretta Jackson, Brent J. Necaise, Johnny Miller McKenzie, Jamey A. Cutts; School of Nursing: Dr. Kim Hoover, Selby Reed Thames, Kayla Nicole Ponds, Courtney Fontenot, Luke LeBlanc, Kelsey Jones, Kimberly Meador; School of Population Health: Dr. Bettina Beech; University of Mississippi: Dr. Angela Sykes Rutherford, Dr. Donald Dyer.

 

Health Sciences faculty’s collaboration earns Call of Duty Award

Kenneth M. Heard III, assistant professor of health sciences in the School of Health Related Professions and director of state authorizations, received the Beyond the Call of Duty Award from the State Authorization Network at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Cooperative for Educational Technologies annual meeting Oct. 23 in Denver, Colorado.

The award recognizes collaboration and innovation in the coordination of a state authorization compliance process at institutions. It is indicative of what networking and innovation can do to help institutions implement compliance plans.

Heard and Ronald Brownie of Northern University, South Dakota, were selected for the award for their collaborative efforts in designing and implementing a cloud-based professional licensure and certification database, free to the public, that assists in identifying the academic and other requirements for professional licensure through the various state licensing agencies.