Dr. Earl Ramsey, Director
Dr. Earl Ramsey earned his B.A. in History and M.A. in English from Rice University and his Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida. He began teaching as a graduate student at community colleges in Texas and in Florida, but his full-time career began at Yale, then at Bryn Mawr, one of the historic Seven Sisters women’s colleges on the east coast.
Now in his 24th year as director of UALR’s top honors program, Dr. Ramsey has made a lasting mark on its development by stressing an interdisciplinary approach. A literary critic and theorist, Ramsey has taught a wide variety of courses throughout his career – from 18th century literature to the writings of Michel de Montaigne, William Shakespeare, William Faulkner and Virginia Wolfe. He also teaches History of Ideas in the Donaghey curriculum.
He joined UALR in 1973 as an associate professor and earned full professor status in 1977. The Student Government Association named him Faculty Member of the Year in 1999, and he received the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences’ Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching in 2005.
Dr. Marcia M. Smith, Associate Director
Dr. Marcia M. Smith received her Ph.D in Rhetoric and Communication from the University of Memphis. Her B.A. in English and Psychology and M.A. in Expository and Technical Writing are from UALR. Since 1990, she has taught Nonfiction Writing, Language and Gender, the Teaching Practicum, and all levels of Composition as a faculty member in the Rhetoric and Writing Department.  She has taught Rhetoric and Communication II in the Donaghey Scholars Program since 2003, and has served as Associate Director of the program for the last seven years.
She has published in the Southwest Mass Communication Journal and The Kentucky Journal of Communication, as well as chapters in two recent anthologies, Lucky Strike and a Three Martini Lunch: Thinking about Television’s Mad Men and Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers. Her research interests include the rhetorics of pregnancy and childbirth, policies and practices in women’s health, and interpersonal communication via social media.
Dr. Jessica R. Scott, Program Administrator
Dr. Jessica R. Scott earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Dynamics and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, and her B.A. in Anthropology and History from UALR. She taught for four years at UA-Fayetteville, including two years of teaching in the Fulbright Honors College, and has spent the last year teaching in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at UALR. Dr. Scott teaches Introduction to Physical Anthropology, Human Paleontology, Dental Anthropology, and Egyptology. She also teaches Science and Society II for the Donaghey Scholars Program.
Dr. Scott is interested in the paleoecology of early human ancestors. She uses teeth to reconstruct the diets and local environments of fossil hominins and the animals that lived alongside them, including primates, carnivores and bovids. Dr. Scott has conducted research in Kenya, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Egypt and Great Divide Basin in Wyoming. She has published 14 articles in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Mammalia, The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, The Journal of Human Evolution, The American Journal of Primatology, and Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, as well as a chapter in the edited volume, Technique and Application in Dental Anthropology.