The Best and the Worst of the Week
Meghan Iverson,a political science major at Loyola University, has been awarded a national undergraduate scholarship that will take her to Ukraine for one year to live and study. As part of the David L. Boren National Security Education Program scholarship, Iverson also gets the chance to work in U.S. government for one year after graduation. Iverson will be entering her junior year in the fall.
Neal Wu,
a seventh-grader from Baton Rouge, recently won the national 2005 MATHCOUNTS championship, competing against 227 other middle-school finalists from across the country. Wu bested 500,000 students nationwide in the math contest, winning the grand prize at the final competition in Detroit. He walked away with an $8,000 college scholarship, a trip to U.S. Space Camp, and a new laptop.
Thomas Luongo,
associate professor of history at Tulane University, has won the venerable Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. The prizes are awarded to 15 scholars and 15 artists annually; recipients get the opportunity to live and study at the Academy. Luongo will begin an 11-month residency in September, researching 14th- and 15th-century Italian religious literature.
Nicholls State University athletics
drew heavy NCAA sanctions last week, including four years of probation, because of 'gross academic fraud.' The university concurred with the NCAA's findings that in 2003-2004, athletic coaches and an academic adviser encouraged student-athletes to lie about finishing correspondence course work. The university's football, volleyball and men's basketball programs were put on probation.
