Category: News

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts held a dedication ceremony for Helen Selig Hall during its annual Director’s Circle Luncheon on Friday, Oct. 7.

ASMSA recently finished a $5.5 million renovation project of the former St. Joseph Hospital convent and chapel complex, converting the spaces into a residential housing for students, a campus mental health hub with offices for professional counseling staff, a new student union and an auditorium. The renovated facility is officially named in honor of former Hot Springs Mayor Helen Selig, who was among the earliest and most vocal proponents of bringing the school to city.

Four years ago, the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts welcomed its first cohort of sophomores to campus. The pilot Early Entrance program provided a pathway for a small group of students on an accelerated academic path to begin their ASMSA experience a year earlier than they could have in the past.

ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice often describes ASMSA’s students as populating two different but equally important groups — transitional and transformational.

Transitional students are those who often come from school districts where they have had more advanced learning opportunities before coming to ASMSA. Their educational background enables them to immediately begin focusing on ASMSA’s rigorous coursework. These were the students who qualified for the initial Early Entrance program.

Transformational students often have faced gaps in learning opportunities — whether they are based on family income, limited available courses or lack of academic counseling among other reasons. They may be some of the best, brightest and most motivated students; however, they lack the solid foundation.

To help address those opportunity gaps for the transformational students, ASMSA introduced the HELIX Prep Academy this year. Based on a previous summer program called Helping Elevate Low-Income Students to Excellence that was sponsored by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, HELIX Prep Academy is designed to bring a small group of transformational students to campus as sophomores and prepare them to excel in their junior year and beyond. The first cohort includes 18 students from across the state.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts has been ranked No. 1 in Niche.com’s 2023 list of Best Public High Schools in Arkansas.

Niche.com is a website that provides in-depth profiles on thousands of colleges, school districts and individual K-12 schools across the nation. Parents and students use Niche’s information to find the right school for them.

Several Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students were recently recognized as recipients of the National African American Recognition Award by the College Board.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts will hold the 2022-23 Science and Arts Café, a series of virtual lectures featuring ASMSA faculty members discussing topics of interest.

The lecture series will be broadcast live on ASMSA’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ARMathSciArts. Fb.me/armathsciarts Each event will begin at 7 p.m. This year’s series lineup includes:

October 4, 2022

In the Arms of Gravity 

Dr. Jack Waddell, physics instructor

Albert Einstein revolutionized physics with his Special and General Theories of Relativity. In particular, the General Theory of Relativity tells us how gravity bends the space time through which all objects travel. It reveals surprising and mysterious features of the universe, such as the existence of black holes and how time slows depending on where you are.

 

November 1, 2022

Who was Homer? Uncovering the Identity of the Ancient World’s Most Famous Poet

Dr. Dan Kostopulos, humanities instructor

Everyone has heard of “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” and their author Homer, but who was he? Did he really “write” these works or is he as mythical as the events he describes? Were these works the product of one imagination or a collective, shared effort over centuries?

 

February 7, 2023

Miyazawa Kenji

Betty Brown, Japanese instructor

Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933) was a poet, author and teacher from Hot Springs' Sister City of Hanamaki, Japan. Miyazawa worked tirelessly to improve the lives of farmers by teaching them improved farming techniques and sharing art, music and poetry with them. Though relatively unknown for his poetry and short stories during his life, his whimsical and often profound writings gained popularity posthumously.

 

April 4, 2013

Science of Pigments

Dr. Burt Hollandsworth, chemistry instructor

Much of our perception of the world is affected by color. Every sample of colored cloth, paint, ink or plastic contains pigments. Pigments are either organic or inorganic chemical compounds that have a characteristic pattern of absorbing, transmitting or reflecting particular frequencies of visible light. Much of our historical perception of the world has been affected by color. This talk will focus on some of the chemistry of pigments as well as the history of the first efforts of chemists to make novel pigments.

During its first three decades, the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts has provided students from across the state an opportunity to live in a community of learning at a public, residential high school that delivers college-level coursework in multiple disciplines.

As ASMSA prepares to enter its fourth decade, the search for the Classes of 2025 and 2026 has officially begun. While recent searches have focused on two early-entry admissions pathways for sophomores and an expanded arts curriculum focus, this year’s admissions cycle leans into a long-term strength of previous class searches — supporting the next generation of young women in STEM.

Six students at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts have been named National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists.

The National Merit Scholarship Corp. announced the names of more than 16,000 Semifinalists for the 68^th annual national Merit Scholarship Program. The students who are all members of the Class of 2023 will have an opportunity to continue in the competition for 7,250 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring.

The ASMSA seniors named Semifinalists are:

• Eliana Adamos of Harrison;
• Robert Boerwinkle of El Dorado;
• Mason Cooper of Conway;
• Savanna Duey of Camden;
• Cecil Mitchell of Belleville; and
• Charis Xiong of White Hall.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts welcomed three new additions to the faculty at the beginning of the 2022-23 academic year in August.

Joining the faculty were Dr. Zac Cowsert as a history instructor, Dr. Nathan Groot as a music instructor and chemistry instructor Dr. Burt Hollandsworth.

Three Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students earned recognition in the recent American Association of Physics Teachers High School Physics Photo Contest.

MK Mashburn Lillian Slaton and Winnie Smith, all members of the Class of 2022, earned honorable mention recognition in the contest’s “Contrived” category. The contest is an international competition for high school students in which they learn about the physics behind natural and contrived situations by creating visual and written illustrations of various physical concepts.