Lyon College is partnering with the COVID Health Project (CHP) for campus testing this fall.

CHP, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a partnership of scientists, healthcare professionals, industry advisors and independent lab owners. The firm will provide turnkey coronavirus testing to help the college resume day-to-day operations.

“One of our most critical requirements is testing — ensuring capacity and rapid results — so that everyone feels safe coming back to campus,” said President Joey King. “Thanks to CHP, we are now COVID ready.” 

Lyon’s partnership was covered by Arkansas Business and on the COVID Health Project’s website.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lyon College was the first to bring on new support services from an Austin-based technology services provider that serves over 400 higher education institutions across the country.

Apogee, with clients ranging from Johns Hopkins University to Arizona State University, partnered with Lyon to improve its technical infrastructure and remote-learning capacity. 

Specifically, Lyon adopted Apogee’s desktop, classroom, and server support, which enables blended learning opportunities for students to connect to live lectures remotely and view recorded lecture material online.

The partnership is mutually beneficial: using Apogee allows Lyon personnel more time to focus on strategic projects. An estimated 15-20% of departmental time has been saved, and technical capacity has dramatically increased.

“With Apogee, Lyon now has the capacity to remotely teach courses that are comparable to our in-person courses,” said Director of Institutional Research Andrew English. “It’s also allowed us to rebuild 95% or our server core.” 

An upgraded server core means faster services, backup, and better security, which will all be imperative for remote learning practices. 

“Apogee Managed Campus has empowered us to more effectively carry out our mission of fostering critical, creative thought and fulfilling personal and professional lives. It does this by foundationally providing the digital resources we are increasingly using to become a 21st century liberal arts college of the first order,” said Lyon College President W. Joseph King.

Lyon College has joined the Arkansas Research Education Optical Network (ARE-ON), providing access to national research networks and allowing the College to collaborate with other higher education institutions. 

ARE-ON is a consortium of all public degree-granting institutions in Arkansas and other selected higher education organizations.

Lyon’s Director of Information Services Jeremiah Cherwien said Lyon is the first private college in Arkansas to join. Apogee, Lyon’s network services provider, will manage the connection for Lyon.

By being part of ARE-ON, the College will be able to share data, research and resources with other colleges and universities across the state. Cherwien said these connections mean big opportunities for Lyon’s academic programs.

“For example, the University of Arkansas in Little Rock shares data sets with other schools and transfers those quickly with ARE-ON. I’m hoping we can use that for our data science program.”

ARE-ON will also give them access to Internet2, a national research network that allows colleges to communicate online without commercial traffic, like ads.

ARE-ON provides a high-speed fiber optic backbone network throughout the state with 1Gb, 10Gb, and 100Gb Ethernet connections to its members, affiliates, national research and education networks, regional optical networks, and commercial service providers. The network consists of approximately 2,200 miles of long-haul fiber optic cable and about 85 miles of metro fiber in twenty-four cities and four neighboring states. 

ARE-ON’s extensive reach allows institutions to connect, collaborate, and innovate within the organization’s core agendas: education, telemedicine, research, and emergency preparedness.

Cherwien said this network will provide 10 times the bandwidth Lyon currently has, which will help the College facilitate online instruction this fall.

“Faculty and students might notice that things download quicker and transferring files from those other universities will be faster.”

He said Lyon plans to use ARE-ON in the future to develop a disaster recovery site, a place to have the College’s servers running somewhere outside of Batesville.

“That way, if something happens here, we can keep working,” Cherwien said.

ARE-ON completed a site survey in July, and Lyon is expected to be connected to the network this fall.

Daniel Armstrong, ’20, researched new treatment options for tuberculosis (TB) at Lyon College this summer.

Armstrong worked with Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. Irosha Nawarathne on developing new antibiotics to treat multi-drug resistant TB.

“This TB strain can be deadly, so new treatment options are always very useful,” Armstrong said.

He used the drug rifamycin, a well-known TB treatment and a broad-spectrum antibiotic, as a precursor to develop new rifamycin derivatives. Using a reaction called an “enabling reaction,” he incorporated an azide group to the complex rifamycin S, something which has not been done before in scientific literature.

“I primarily studied ‘click chemistry of rifamycins,’ which is a type of reaction that occurs between two specific chemical groups: alkynes and azides,” Armstrong said.

After modifying rifamycin so that it had an azide functional group on it, he added different alkyne molecules to it in order to create the new rifamycin derivatives. During the project, he would frequently run reactions and later purify the products using chromatography, a laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture.

He also used techniques like infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry to identify products.

“I think the coolest moment for me was when I realized that the antibiotics I made had never been made before,” Armstrong said.

Nawarathne said the novel rifamycins developed by Armstrong are currently being tested by other researchers for their antimicrobial and anticancer activities.

“It’s exciting to think that some day the drugs made in Dr. Irosha’s lab could possibly help treat TB,” Armstrong said.

He believes this research experience will help him when he enters the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Pharmacy this fall.

“This research gave me insight into the drug discovery process,” Armstrong said. “So much work goes into the process of developing just one drug molecule, and I think appreciation for that is important.” 

Junior Hannah Wu, of Cabot, is expanding her research experience in Lyon College’s lab this summer.

She is working with Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Maryline Jones to study Ambystoma mexicanum, a type of salamander known as the Mexican axolotl. 

Wu and Jones are using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qpcr) and immunostaining to identify osmoregulatory proteins and the expression and location of those proteins in the aquatic salamanders. Osmoregulation is the process of maintaining salt and water balance across membranes within an organism’s body.

“Gaining more knowledge about which proteins are involved in osmoregulation will help us be one step closer to understanding human diseases that involve water and ion uptake,” Wu said.

She said Lyon is currently raising over 100 axolotls in the lab.

“There is definitely a lot of work that goes into this,” Wu said. “Processes like mRNA extraction, DNA amplification and purification and histology take a lot of concentration and patience.”

She continued, “However, when the results show that I did a process correctly, it makes me feel like all the hard work and frustration is worth it!”

This is Wu’s second summer conducting research. During the summer of her freshman year, she conducted research in Bethesda, Md., with Dr. D. Scott Merrell, ’92, at the Uniformed Services University.

A double major in biology and psychology, Wu said many of her courses at Lyon, such as Principles of Biology II and Cell Biology, have prepared her for her research experiences by enhancing her understanding of DNA, proteins and other cellular components.

“You don’t realize how much you know until you actually put it to use!”

Courses like Organic Chemistry have helped her identify many of the chemicals being used in the labs.

“Performing microbiology research allows me to integrate the many skills and knowledge I have learned,” she said. “The classes at Lyon are rigorous, but if you take the time to learn the information that is being provided to you, you will walk away with knowledge that you will be able to use wherever you go.”

Wu hopes this research experience will expand her knowledge of axolotls and the different types of proteins that are involved in their ability to osmoregulate.

“On a larger spectrum, I wish to walk away with the ability to think critically and attain the ability to come up with research questions and how to answer those questions.”

She plans to continue doing research at Lyon for the next two years and attend medical school after graduating.

Wu’s favorite part of research is the opportunity to learn new skills and information on a daily basis.

“Knowing that the work I am doing now will impact the future and help solve unanswered questions is so invigorating,” Wu said. 

She concluded, “I am honored that Dr. Jones provided me this opportunity to change the world. I know I play a very small part in the science community, but I hope that my part will be advantageous.”

Two Lyon College students are working in both the laboratory and the field to research the impact of poultry houses on local watersheds this summer.

Seniors Allison Mundy and Olivia Echols are researching the water quality in the Eleven Point and Black River watersheds. Poultry houses cause phosphorus and nitrogen runoffs, which can create harmful algae blooms in the water. 

Mundy is working under Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Allyn Dodd, and Echols is splitting her time with Dodd and Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Maryline Jones.

They are studying the nutrients present in local streams to make sure they are at acceptable levels. If the streams are over-nutriated, then that is a sign that poultry house runoff is in the water.

“We’re also checking to see how much algae is growing in the streams,” Mundy said. “If there’s too much algae, the fish cannot survive because it depletes the oxygen in the water.”

She continued, “I’m checking the macroinvertebrates community. Basically, there are some bugs in the water that cannot live in pollution at all, so I check to see if any of those bugs are around and count them.”

Echols said she is studying the Ozark crawfish population to see how the pollution impacts the physiology of crawfish.

“We’re looking at how the nutrients have affected the osmoregulation of the crawfish,” Echols said. “Our main purpose right now is to try to sequence the genes involved in osmoregulation.”

Mundy said their work is part of Dodd’s research project in collaboration with Jones and Erik Pollock of the University of Arkansas, which was funded through a grant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

“We are just gathering information to share with the USGS so they can publish the research on their website and get it to whoever needs it.”

She said the USGS is worried about this region of Arkansas because of the growing number of poultry houses in the area.

“They’re checking to make sure everything is okay,” Mundy said, “and that people are within their regulations.”

Mundy and other students previously presented some of their research at the 2020 Posters at the Capitol event in February.

“I have a few business cards from a few legislators in the area,” Mundy said. “They were asking if we could send them our results when we’re finished.”

She continued, “Our research has a direct impact on the policies people are making. It’s really cool to know that my science gets to be reviewed at that level.”

Echols and Mundy are excited to be working on their first undergraduate research project and to apply what they have learned in their biology courses in the field.

“I learned about crawfish in Bio 110,” Echols said, “so I’m getting to apply a bunch of dissection and anatomy of crawfish from that course.”

Mundy said she is using what she learned in her Biological Statistics course to run her own statistics on this project.

“It’s great to be able to learn a different side of biology,” Echols said. “I’ve worked with cells and things like that , but not necessarily with bugs and water chemistry.”

She concluded, “It’s nice to be able to see the background of the impact poultry houses can have on ecology.”

“I like this research because it’s beyond the textbook,” Mundy said. “You get to contextualize how science is done, and you get to know it a lot better than you would just reading from a book.”

The Lyon College Art Program has completed a new mural in downtown Batesville.

The new mural, Blossoming Main Street, depicts an apple blossom on Main Street to represent the recent growth of Batesville’s beautiful downtown. The art department worked with Main Street Batesville and the Batesville Area Arts Council (BAAC) to finish the project.

The design was a collaboration between Professor of Art Dustyn Bork and Carly Dahl, BAAC director. Mandi Curtwright and Main Street Batesville applied for grant funding through the Arkansas Department of Heritage to complete the mural. Dahl and the BAAC provided logistical and operational support.

In addition to himself and his wife, Dahl, Bork said two current students, seniors Brianna Sanchez and Samantha Long, and an alumna, Victoria Hutcheson, helped him paint the new mural. 

Hutcheson was back in Batesville due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Bork reached out to ask if she would like to help.

“It felt great to be back painting murals in Batesville again,” she said. “The murals class at Lyon and Batesville shaped me so much in my life and career.”

Hutcheson continued, “It was also wonderful to talk to some current students to see how they enjoy learning about the murals and being able to give them some advice on what it’s like after Lyon and doing murals of your own.”

Long, of Cave City, felt like part of the community while working on the mural.

“The process was actually kind of stressful. Once you start painting and see the finished project, though, it’s really rewarding.”

Sanchez, of Paragould, drove all the way to Batesville to help for a week.

“Working on this project, I learned that if you step out of your comfort zone, you will earn even more opportunities,” she said. “I have already been spoken to about two potential murals of my own in Corning, Ark.”

Bork said the goal with the Blossoming Main Street mural is to inspire.

“We want to encourage visitors to see their surroundings in a new light and to encourage more foot traffic to the beautiful area of downtown Batesville.”

In the art department’s experience, he said, large colorful compositions garner great attention and are perfect for community engagement. He said this type of mural has the potential to be quite visible and be shared through social media and photography.

“We selected the apple blossom as it is the state flower. We wanted a subject matter that had local recognition and significance.”

Bork loved providing students and alumni the opportunity to get involved and help shape the community.

“They are awesome in their skills, so I know I can count on them,” he said. “This mural was a very complex painting with 22 unique colors and complex design, the most advanced we have taken on.”

The alumni and students have executed a few murals before, so Bork knew they would step up to the challenge.

“Having Victoria working with the current students was also a great teaching opportunity. Since she has executed a couple of large scale commissioned murals on her own, she was able to give them real world pointers on how to get started in their art.”

Seeing the impact of the Coke mural, the solo murals completed by students and the new Blossoming Main Street mural has been a rewarding experience for Bork.

“I am very proud of the role that Lyon and my students have played in adding to the vibrancy of our community,” he said.

Bork continued, “The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive. Murals are tangible and visible products of artists’ creativity and talents.” 

“All of the support from the community makes all the hard work so much more worth it,” Sanchez said. “I’m thankful to call Batesville my home away from home.”

“No matter where you’re from, art can be a really nice way to connect to your community,” said Long. 

Both seniors would love to be involved in more community art projects in the future.

“I think every town deserves some color,” Sanchez said.

Lyon College’s chapter of Mortar Board received five national honors from the Mortar Board National College Senior Honor Society.

The Order of the Tartan Chapter won the Gold Torch Award for the third straight year and three Project Excellence awards. Mortar Board advisor, Dr. Irosha Nawarathne, also received an Excellence in Advising award.

Madison Grant, ’20, the outgoing president of Mortar Board, said the Golden Torch Award is presented to chapters that go above and beyond. To be eligible, chapters must complete all their paperwork, have all of their membership dues paid, and perform service projects on campus.

“It was inspiring to see how the chapter came together when our whole year changed,” Grant said. 

“Our Mortar Board chapter has a history of high standards,” said Melanie Beehler, ’20, “so it felt good to continue that legacy amidst what was happening outside of campus.”

Lyon received Project Excellence awards for the LEAD Conference, the virtual Student Creative Arts and Research Forum (SCARF) and the new Humanities, Arts, Sciences and Technology (HATS) event. 

The LEAD Conference is held in the fall and teaches high schoolers how to be successful leaders. SCARF is held in the spring and gives Lyon students the chance to share the work they have pursued both in and outside of the classroom with their peers. HATS is a new companion event for SCARF that gives Lyon freshmen the chance to showcase the original research they have worked on during their first semester.

Nawarathne said SCARF was originally planned to be an in-person event, but Lyon students were dismissed from campus a week before it was scheduled to take place because of concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was really rough. We had worked so hard on SCARF, and we had it all ready to go. The students were upset, and I was upset.”

Fortunately, she said, Mortar Board and the SCARF committee worked with the Office of Strategic Marketing and Communication to hold the event virtually. The executive committee of Madison Grant, Kendra Kelley, Navy Griffin, Melanie Beehler, Daniel Armstrong, Sean O’Leary and Christen Johnson helped organize the virtual SCARF.

“We had an excellent executive committee this year,” Nawarathne said. “Everybody was well involved and ready to take on leadership roles.”

“It was heartbreaking that SCARF had to be cancelled in real-time because so many people put a lot of work into various aspects of the conference,” Grant said. “However, we did get to host it virtually, which gave the participants their chance to show off their hard work.”

Beehler and Grant said seeing Nawarathne recognized for Excellence in Advising by the national Mortar Board organization felt great.

“Dr. Irosha was a great help in moving SCARF to a virtual platform!” said Beehler. “She dedicates a lot of time to helping us with events and encouraging us to take the lead.” 

She continued, “In regards to Mortar Board, she is a perfect example of what an advisor ought to be.”

Grant submitted the nomination for Nawarathne and was “so honored to then see her receive the award.”

“We held a personal award ceremony virtually for her, and it was so difficult to surprise her.”

The executive committee organized a Zoom call with Nationals to present the award to Nawarathne, along with flowers and a framed photo of this year’s members.

“She always goes above and beyond to help us be the best chapter we can be,” Grant said. “She was beyond deserving of such an incredible award.”

Nawarathne felt “truly honored and humbled” to receive the award from the national organization.

“The opportunity to work with an exemplary group of students like Lyon’s Mortar Board members is a gift I value more than any special award,” she said.

Nawarathne concluded with some advice from her personal experience being a first-generation college student in Sri Lanka more than a decade and a half ago. As much as she was supported by her loved ones, she said there was enough negativity to discourage her from reaching her dreams.

“Don’t let society define who you are or decide what you should be,” Nawarathne said. “Embrace who you are and dream big!”

She encouraged students to not only live their dreams but to also help others achieve their dreams.

“Serve more, judge less! Be the difference!”

Angelica Holmes, ’15, is the new executive director of Black Outside, Inc.

BlackOutside.org says the nonprofit organization was founded with the mission of expanding outdoor “access, programming and relevancy to both Black and Brown communities across Texas.”

Holmes was already working with Black Outside as the director of the relaunched Camp Founder Girls, one of the first summer camps for Black girls founded in 1924. Alex Bailey, the founder and former executive director of Black Outside, recently started a new job, and the nonprofit was looking for someone to take over his role.

“I was one of the first people mentioned because I’m so familiar with the organization,” Holmes said. “I’ve always been on the board for Black Outside, and its mission has been close to my heart since the very beginning.”

She had to work through some “imposter syndrome” internally while preparing to take on the new leadership role.

“I’m an introvert, and I never imagined this would be my role. It’s been kind of crazy and still a lot to process.”

Holmes continued, “I’m so excited about it, though!”

She will continue serving as the director of Camp Founder Girls and working hand-in-hand with Bailey, but she will be taking the lead on programs now.

“Instead of spending all my time and attention on Camp Founders Girls stuff, I’ll be looking at the bigger picture of Black Outside’s mission.”

Holmes will help manage Black Outside’s other programs, such as the Brotherhood Summit and the Charles Roundtree Bloom Project.

The Brotherhood Summit, she said, is an annual outdoor retreat for Black male high school students. A collective of Black male teachers and mentors convene with students from across San Antonio, Texas, for mentorship, community-building and leadership development.

The Charles Roundtree Bloom Project aims to create a space of communal healing for youth impacted by incarceration and over-policing in their communities.

“It was started by my esteemed colleague Ki’Amber Thompson,” Holmes said. “Her cousin, Charles Roundtree, was 18 in 2018 when he was killed by the San Antonio Police Department.”

She continued, “[Ki’Amber] has a lot of experience dealing with over-policing in San Antonio. She wanted to give her family members and members of the community who had similar upbringings what she would have wanted when she was their age.”

Holmes said the Bloom Project facilitates healing-centered outdoor experiences and culturally relevant environmental education that helps young people “envision new possibilities for their lives, for their communities and for our world.”

She is also excited to continue working with Camp Founder Girls, which just finished its second year. The camp had to pivot to a hybrid model this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, hosting day camps with three small groups of 10 girls instead of the typical overnight model.

“With everything going on in the world, we recognized the importance of our girls having a chance to get together and convene, even if it was on a much smaller scale.”

The camp featured some “social distancing-friendly” day activities. Some were in person, and some were virtual, Holmes said.

“We just wanted to give them a little taste of camp and that sense of community.” 

She continued, “It’s been really hard trying to figure out how to be as safe as possible, but I think we did a good job of making sure we were overly cautious when it came to preventing transmission of the virus or any health issues.”

Holmes is looking forward to being more involved in all of Black Outside’s programming and seeing its mission expand. 

One lesson she has learned through Camp Founder Girls is the importance of giving the kids time to breathe.

“As a former teacher working with a lot of former teachers, we wanted to have every single minute planned,” she said, laughing. 

Holmes said giving kids time to discover and explore on their own is important.

“As we plan for the future, we have to give the kids some time to just be outside and be able to discover, walk around and inhale and exhale outside. It’s such a blessing. We’re finding ways to work that into the schedule.”

To donate to Black Outside and its programs, visit BlackOutside.org/donate. Donors can select which program they want to support or let their donation go to the area of most need.