FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas will honor top students and scholarship winners at its annual Honors Convocation on Thursday, April 16, at the Center for Continuing Education.

The event also gives the college a chance to thank donors who fund scholarships.

“We want to take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation to the many donors whose gifts have made so many scholarships possible,” said Reed Greenwood, dean of the college. “This event is our way of recognizing donors and our students who excel academically.”

The college awarded scholarships totaling $399,726 to 197 students for the 2009-10 academic year.

The college’s top honors will go to Bentley Seal, who won the Presidential Scholar Award, and to Stephanie Moore, who won the Henry G. and Stella Hotz Award for the outstanding sophomore in the college.

Seal, of Siloam Springs, is a junior majoring in childhood education. She serves as vice president of Kappa Delta Pi, which is an honor society for education students, and works as a research assistant for the Office for Education Policy, a research center in the College of Education and Health Professions.

Seal plans to enter the Master of Arts in Teaching program after earning her bachelor’s degree. She wants to obtain licensing endorsements in fifth and sixth grades, English as a second language and special education. Her grandmother and great-aunts were teachers, too.

Her work with the Office for Education Policy has given her a deeper understanding of the education system, Seal said. She has assisted with an evaluation of teacher effectiveness and helped with research on charter schools, education technology and merit pay. She also has experience coordinating and planning local conferences, working closely with legislators and philanthropists and assisting school districts across the state and region in a variety of ways.

Moore, of Jonesboro, is a sophomore majoring in nursing. She also cited family influence in choice of study. Her mother is a registered nurse and her sister is a senior in the university’s Eleanor Mann School of Nursing.

Moore will begin work in the college’s Honors Program next year. She plans to pursue a Master of Science in Nursing after earning her bachelor’s degree and would like to work as a family or pediatric nurse practitioner.

Lindsey Jo Sarratt is the college’s first-ranked senior scholar. Seniors in the Honors Program are Katherine Delph, Rachel Denton, Jamie Hail, Evan Lord, Meredith Moore, Mallory Nash, Amanda Reed, Shannon Rehm, Chelsea Rose, Thomas Rosson Jr. and Allison Ward-Seidel.

The college will also honor students who won awards from their academic departments. A complete list of awards is available at http://coehp.uark.edu/7107.htm.