Volume 1, Issue 2
Page 5
Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activities (URSA) News
Patty Smith
Recently, undergraduate research was institutionalized at Tulsa Community College (TCC); this was the vision of
the late Dr. John Kontogianes. The Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activities (URSA) Committee consists of Dr.
Bryan Coppedge, Dr. Connie Hebert, Dr. Diana Spencer, Dr. Patrick Idwasi, Dr. Gary Hunt, and Patty Smith. This Committee has worked and will continue to work with the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) and Oklahoma State Regents
for Higher Education (OSRHE). They have developed a mission statement and plan of actions and progresses of undergraduate research experiences. URSA information can be accessed through Organiz ations on TCC Blackboard. For additional information on URSA, please contact Patty Smith.
Patty Smith and Dr. Diana Spencer presented on Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activities at Tulsa Community College for the OACC Conference on February 26. In addition, Dr. Donna Wood, Dr. Bryan Coppedge, Beth
Shumate, and Patty Smith attended the First Annual Undergraduate Research Conference at Oklahoma State Regents for
Higher Education on March 26. Dr. Bryan Coppedge served on the Undergraduate Research Conference Committee,
which organized the Conference. Also, Patty Smith participated in the Faculty Panel for this Conference.
Mark Dolph Receives Oklahoma
Historical Society’s Award for Best M.A.
Thesis
believed that practically educated farm children would
Ginny Davis
Oklahoma.
Mr. Mark Dolph was recently selected to receive
save the agrarian ideal implicit in the creation of their
state. The redirection of rural education would prove to
be the lasting legacy of the Country Life Commission in
SAVING
OKLAHOMA
the Oklahoma Historical Society’s award for the best M.A.
thesis on Oklahoma History completed in 2009. Mr.
Dolph’s outstanding work consisted of: Saving Oklahoma:
Redirecting Rural Education to Save Oklahoma’s Agrarian
Ideal, 1907-1917. The following is the abstract for his thesis.
Oklahoma’s creation represented for many an
agrarian paradise, where the ideal of living on the land
promised farming people both independence and opportunity. But at the very moment Oklahoma entered the
union in 1907, rural America was on the verge of being
overwhelmed by industrial, urban America. Yet within a
year of Oklahoma statehood, President Theodore Roosevelt created his Country Life Commission in an attempt to
uplift and sustain rural life so that agrarians, like those in
Oklahoma, might lead enriched and rewarding lives. While
there was a wide array of activities aimed at remaking rural America, the effort consistently cited as most successful was rural education reform. Reformers in Oklahoma
Redirecting Rural Education To Save
Oklahoma’s Agrarian Ideal: 1907-1917