Walton Gift Helps UA Lure Scholars

As fall classes began Aug. 26 at the University of Arkansas, Suzanne McCray was busier than usual, but she certainly wasn’t complaining.

McCray is associate dean of the UA Honors College, which has 135 new students who received scholarships this fall thanks to a $300 million gift from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation of Bentonville.

Of that gift, which was announced April 11, $200 million was earmarked for the Honors College.

The money will help the UA keep some of the brightest high school students in Arkansas from leaving the state to attend college, McCray said. The remaining $100 million will go to the UA Graduate School.

Sixty of those new students are UA Honors Fellows and will receive $50,000 over four years for educational expenses that include tuition, room, board, books, computers, lab equipment and even study abroad.

The other 75 students are Honors College Academy Scholars who will receive $16,000 during their four-year undergraduate education.

Next year, the UA will award 75 Honors Fellowships and 75 Academy Scholarships. That trend will continue, so that in four years, there will be 300 students in each category on the UA campus, McCray said.

The gift will also pay for new faculty positions, but McCray said it will be fall 2003 at the earliest before those professors are on the Fayetteville campus.

“That’ll take a while,” McCray said. “We’re creating the applications now.”

Bob Smith, UA provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs, is serving as interim dean of the Honors College until a permanent dean is hired.

The new Honors College scholars will join 10 Sturgis Fellows and nine Bodenhamer Fellows who were also admitted this fall as freshmen. The Sturgis and Bodenhamer fellowships each provide $50,000 over the four years of an undergraduate education and, at least until this year, were considered to be the most prestigious scholarships awarded each fall by the UA. Now, those awards are equal to the Honors Fellowships, at least on financial basis.

The UA also has 250 Chancellors Scholars on campus. Those students receive up to $32,000 over four years for college.

McCray said the Walton family didn’t want the Honors College to be named after them because of the donation.

None of the family members was present when the award was announced at the UA in April. The late Sam Walton was founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is now the world’s largest company.

Private college presidents in Arkansas didn’t seem too worried yet about the increased competition with the UA’s Honors College.

“At this point, I think an honors college at a doctoral institution probably has a little different mission than a liberal arts college,” said Walter Roettger, president of Lyon College in Batesville.

Roettger said liberal arts colleges concentrate on “acquiring” knowledge, rather than training students to find jobs after graduation, which is more in line with the mission of large universities.

“This is a wonderful thing for the university and education in the state as a whole,” Roettger said. “It’ll certainly mean more competition, but Lyon is a different kind of college with a different kind of mission.”

“We don’t expect that it will affect us at all because students that come to a national liberal arts college are looking for a different type of experience than a college nestled within a larger university,” said J. Timothy Cloyd, president of Hendrix College in Conway.

“The kids come here for a liberal arts education as well,” McCray said of the UA. “But we also offer science, engineering, architecture, education and agriculture. We offer the whole palate of colors here.

“We have one of the top five creative writing programs in the country, so we are liberal arts. We have it all.”

McCray said the average ACT score for freshmen entering the UA Honors College is higher than at Hendrix.

“So if we are a college nestled within a larger university, we’re a very good one,” she said.