SEMO: NICKELL WILL SPEAK AT COMMENCEMENT

Frank Nickell, professor of history and director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University, will present the summer commencement address Aug. 6 on the Southeast campus.

Commencement exercises are scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Show Me Center.

Leading the class of 210 undergraduates are Regina Buckenmyer of Cape Girardeau, Monietta Wilkerson of Fisk and Scott Nichols of Bell City.

Buckenmyer will receive a bachelor of science degree in business administration with a major in marketing, and will graduate with a 3.97 grade point average.

Wilkerson will receive a bachelor of science degree in nursing and will graduate with a 3.85 grade point average.

Nichols will receive a bachelor of science degree with a major in health management, and will graduate with a 3.83 grade point average.

In addition, 66 graduate students will receive master's or specialty degrees, and four members of Phi Kappa Phi will be recognized.

Phi Kappa Phi is an international honor society for academic distinction that brings together men and women from a variety of disciplines who have demonstrated excellence in scholarship and integrity of character.

Southeast Missouri State University chartered its first Phi Kappa Phi Chapter in 1992.

An honors convocation is scheduled for 4 p.m. in Academic Hall Auditorium, where 19 undergraduates and 38 graduate students will be honored.

The honor undergraduates must have earned at least a 3.5 grade point average on a 4.0 scale.

The graduate students must have achieved at least a 3.8 average.

Mary Ann Vogelsang, Southeast professor of communication disorders and secondary education, will present the honors convocation remarks.

Nickell, who will present the commencement address, has served at Southeast in numerous positions since 1969. He was bursar of the university from 1973 to 1976, a professor in the Department of History until 1978, and chair of the Department of History until 1983.

Nickell returned to teaching full time in 1983.

Last year, he was one of 47 educators from Missouri institutions of higher learning to receive the 1992 Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

He was nominated for the honor after receiving the 1992 Southeast Faculty Merit Award.

Nickell, who has lectured across the state, has taught 20 college courses, given two dozen conference presentations and published 15 scholarly essays and articles.

Nickell also has been instrumental at Southeast in the Elderhostel program, the Great Decisions Program, the Great Books Program, the Southeast Truman Scholars Program, and "History Day" at the local, state and national levels.

He has been selected by the Missouri Humanities Council to be a member of its Speaker's Bureau "American Mirror" lecture series. Nickell received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Eastern Illinois University, and his doctoral degree from the University of New Mexico.