FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Dean Donald Bobbitt has selected six graduates of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas as distinguished alumni for 2006, in recognition of outstanding achievements in fields ranging from public service to art, physics, historical preservation, worldwide venture capital investments and editing.

This year’s distinguished alumni are Louis Bowen, Kay Goss, Palmer Hotz, Yun-Fei Ji, Gordon Morgan and Everett Ortner.

“These alumni reflect the talents and diversity of our graduates. They are remarkable for their contributions to industry, government and their communities. Their accomplishments serve to inspire our current students, who look to such role models as they prepare to embark on their careers,” said Dean Bobbitt.

Louis McDaniel Bowen graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1970 with a bachelor of arts degree in economics. He then earned a master of business administration degree in finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been in the private equity and venture capital business in Asia since 1981, when he co-founded one of the first venture capital businesses in the country, Arral and Partners Limited. Currently he is chairman and managing director of Asia Capital Management Limited, a Hong Kong-based venture capital and private equity company that he established in 1994. Over the last 25 years of private equity and investment banking in Asia, he has been responsible for more than 50 investments in a range of industries and countries in the region. He is a co-founder of the Hong Kong Venture Capital Association and is a member of the World Presidents’ Organization. In 1992, he became the first native Arkansan to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Since then, he has climbed several other mountains in Asia, Europe, South America and the United States.

Kay Goss is a full-time senior advisor for homeland security, emergency management and disaster recovery services at Electronic Data Systems Corp., a global technology company with 130,000 employees working in 58 countries. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in public administration and political science in 1963 and a master of arts in 1966, both from the University of Arkansas. From 1994 to 2001, she served as associate director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, overseeing a staff of 500 and a budget of more than $300 million. She led initiatives in technology transfer, the creation of a global disaster information network and radiological emergency preparedness. From 1982 to 1993, she served as senior assistant for intergovernmental relations for then Gov. Bill Clinton, coordinating policy outreach for agencies responsible for emergency management, fire service, law enforcement, public safety and criminal justice. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Wilbur D. Mills Treatment Center for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in Arkansas and was named Arkansan of the Year in 2000 by the governing Board of Health Resources of Arkansas.

After earning a bachelor of science degree in physics from the University of Arkansas in 1948, Palmer Hotz went on to complete his doctoral degree at Washington University in St. Louis in 1953. After teaching at Auburn University from 1953 to 1958, Hotz taught at Oklahoma State University, Marietta College in Ohio and the University of Missouri at Rolla before joining the Nuclear Equipment Corp. in San Carlos, Calif., as senior scientist. In 1991, he retired from the analytical division of Dohrmann-Rosemount in Santa Clara, Calif., as senior scientist. He now serves as a consultant with Hotz Associates in Burlingame, Calif. He and his wife, Marie Brase Hotz, established the Hartman Hotz Lectures Series at the university in honor of Dr. Hotz’s brother, Hartman, a UA graduate in history who made significant contributions to the study of law during his tenure as a faculty member of the UA School of Law. Dr. Hotz is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.

Yun-Fei Ji won a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Arkansas, where he earned his master of fine arts degree in 1989. Ji was born in Beijing, the son of a People’s Liberation doctor who ran a clinic on a military base. Solo exhibitions of his artwork have appeared at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, the Pratt Manhattan Gallery in New York, and at museums in Iceland and Belgium. He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York, the Nelson Fine Arts Center in Arizona, the New York Whitney Biennial - one of the most prestigious exhibitions in the world for contemporary artists - and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He was a winner of the 2005-06 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome and is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Sharp Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Headland Center for the Arts in San Francisco. His art has been reviewed by writers from the New York Sun, the Washington Post, Art News, the New York Times, The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine.

Gordon Morgan has taught classes in sociology at the University of Arkansas since 1973. After graduating Cum Laude from Arkansas AM&N College in Pine Bluff with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, he went on to earn a master’s degree at the University of Arkansas in 1956 and a doctoral degree from Washington State University in Pullman in 1963. He earned a commission as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army artillery in 1959. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Teaching Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Fellowship, Morgan is the author of 12 books and 22 articles on topics ranging from the Harlem Renaissance to Ozark Mountain blacks, Arkansas culture and college students from the ghetto. In 1991 he served as a distinguished visiting professor at Washington State University in Pullman, and has been a consultant for Philander Smith College in Little Rock, the Arkansas Program on Basic Adult Education and the National Institutes of Mental Health in Washington, D.C.

Everett Ortner is an editor, writer and photographer. His retirement from Popular Science magazine ended a 33-year career with that publication, beginning as an assistant editor and ending as editor. He has written hundreds of articles on building technology, photography, preservation and urban revival. He received a bachelor’s degree in art from the university in 1939. Since 1965 he has been a missionary for the brownstone-revival movement in New York City, and for urban revival nationally. He was a leader in the early days of the revival movement in his Brooklyn community of Park Slope, and was a co-founder and first president of the Brownstone Revival Committee of New York, now the Brownstone Revival Coalition - a citywide organization devoted to the promotion and preservation of New York City's older communities. Over the years, Ortner has also served as a board member of Preservation Action in Washington, D.C., trustee and vice president of the Brooklyn Historical Society, vice president of the Park Slope Civic Council, and board member and president of Brooklyn's historic Montauk Club. Retired since 1985, he continues, as chairman emeritus of the Brownstone Revival Coalition, writing and editing its newsletter. He is the recipient of many awards, among them the Distinguished Citizen Award from the city of Louisville, the Community Service Award from the Brooklyn Independent Democrats, the Spirit of Life award from the New York Congregational Home, the Exemplary Service in Community Preservation Award from the Historic Districts Council of New York City, and, most recently, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York chapter of the Victorian Society of the United States.

These graduates will return to campus April 21, to visit with students and faculty and attend a dinner in their honor at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House.