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Contact: David West
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
1/13/98
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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NATCHITOCHES - Dr. Margaret Cochran has been named director of the Louisiana Scholars' College at Northwestern State University. Her appointment has been approved by the University of Louisiana Board of Trustees. Cochran has been acting director since August 1996.
"Dr. Cochran brings distinctive leadership and organization to the Scholars' College," said Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Thomas A. Burns. Her tenure as acting director was marked with outstanding achievements for the college: stabilization of enrollment, a new degree program, and articulation of programs within the university and Scholars College. She is an outstanding individual that the university is proud to have her as the director of the Scholars' College."
As acting director, Cochran developed the Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Liberal Arts for the Scholars' College and formalized agreements allowing students to complete the honors curriculum with one of 16 majors in the Colleges of Business, Liberal Arts and Science and Technology. She also served as chair of an Interdisciplinary Panel of the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education, Course and Curriculum Development, and served on the university's Instructional Technology Advisory Council.
Before being named acting director, Cochran was a member of the Scholars' College faculty for three years as an assistant professor of mathematics..
Cochran earned a Bachelor's of Science in the College Scholars Program, a multidisciplinary liberal arts honors program at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She also earned a Master of Science in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Tennessee.
In addition to her work in the classroom, Cochran was project manager for the Okefenokee Long-Term Ecological Research Group in 1987. This University of Georgia project was funded by the National Science Foundation to investigate variability in energy flows, water budgets and aquatic food webs in the Okefenokee watershed. She oversaw a budget of approximately $100,000, supervised undergraduate and graduate student assistants, post doctoral fellows and technicians. Cochran filed reports with appropriate federal agencies and organized and supervised the project's completion.
Her research experience includes work at the University of California at Davis, the University of Georgia and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Cochran was also a Fellow at The Institute for Advanced Studies at The Hebrew University at Jerusalem. During the fellowship, she participated in the Ecoratio research year on the application of game theory to ecology, evolution and animal behavior. Her research focuses on interactions between orchids and their pollinators and on mathematical models of population dynamics.
The Louisiana Scholars' College was established in 1987 by the State Board of Regents as the state's selective admissions college of the liberal arts. The mission of the Scholars' College is to provide an education in the arts and sciences to highly motivated students. Through a broad and coherent common curriculum, the college offers an education meeting the standards set by the Board of Regents for the Certificate of Excellence in undergraduate study.