The Arkansas Alumni Association announced the 2022 Seniors Awards on May 11. Selected based on their academic achievements, leadership skills and extracurricular campus and/or community activities, the Seniors of Significance are the only students on campus who are eligible for the next two tiers of the Alumni Association’s Senior Awards program: The Razorback Classics and Senior Honor Citation.

Shantal Sarmiento, 2022 Senior of Significance and Razorback Classic

Shantal was born in Chiriqui, Panama and moved to Panama City at a young age. She shared that she has enjoyed various volunteer activities and being involved on campus. This is her third year as an officer of the Society of Women Engineers and second year in a row as the vice-president. She is also engaged in several other student organizations including Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the Multicultural Center, and the International Culture Team, where she has been a core member for two years. Being part of the international Culture Team has allowed her to make friends with people from all over the world. Shantal enjoys traveling, and the ability to communicate with people from different cultures has greatly helped her during her solo trips abroad.

Shantal was a Resident Assistant in Yocum Hall for two years helping freshmen students in their transition to college life. She completed four internships with three different companies during her time on campus. She worked as a Market Optimization Intern during the summers of 2020 and 2021 with Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation, in Little Rock, Arkansas. During her senior year, Shantal participated in two Venture Internships through the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas. She was a Venture Intern for Faytown Designs, a Fayetteville startup in Fall 2021, and for Lacaida Ropes, a startup in Rogers, in spring 2022. Shantal also worked part-time in the Faulkner Performing Arts Center during spring 2022.

During her senior year, Shantal earned a national scholarship from Alpha Pi Mu, the Industrial Engineering Honors Society. She also received a Taft-O’Neal-Geels Senior Scholarship and a Rosecrans Memorial Scholarship. Among her senior awards are an Arkansas Traveler Recognition and a Graduating Student Leader Medal.

Shantal plans to enter the workforce after graduation and is currently considering various offers. Once she gains some real-world experience, she intends to return to school and complete her master’s degree. She is extremely grateful for all those who have supported and encouraged her during her time at the University of Arkansas.

Coleman Warren recognized as a 2022 Senior of Significance, 2022 Razorback Classic and with the
2022 Senior Honor Citation

Coleman Warren, a native of Farmington, was recognized with the 2022 Senior Honor Citation. The citation was established in 1965 by the Arkansas Alumni Association to recognize the top two seniors on campus who exhibit outstanding academic achievement, leadership skills and cocurricular engagement at the U of A.  Stephanie Beitle, Honors College Fellow and chemical engineering senior was the other Senior Honor student.

Warren is a dual major in industrial engineering and political science. His honors undergraduate thesis reflects both passions: “A Quantitative Analysis of Food Pantry Spatial Accessibility in Washington County, Arkansas.” 

He has excelled in and out of the classroom and in 2021 and 2022, his stellar achievements were recognized when he was named a Truman Scholar and Rhodes Scholar, respectively – the latter being an opportunity extended to only 32 students in the country. The only undergraduate student in the history of the University of Arkansas to receive both prestigious awards! He has interned with AmeriCorp, Congressman Westermans’ Office and others.

Warren is the founder and CEO of Simple + Sweet Creamery, a locally sourced, homemade ice cream company that donates a portion of its revenue to the NWA Food Bank to fight food insecurity. He is also the founder and director of Simply Feeding, a 501(c)(3) organization. Simple + Sweet won first place and $10,000 in an international student startup competition hosted by the University of Manitoba and was featured in Arkansas Short Takes. Warren said his company competed not only against small business enterprises, but large-scale technology ventures. “I loved the opportunity to represent Arkansas and the U.S. at the global scale with our very locally focused business,” he continued “Within the next two years, we hope to expand to a brick-and-mortar storefront with growth into our wholesale distribution to restaurants and grocers.”

His cocurricular engagement and leadership experience at the university is broad. Warren is the 100th student body president. He previously served as director of policy and director of open education resources for the Associated Student Government. He has served as a College of Engineering peer mentor, a campus ambassador and partner with the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, a junior counselor for Arkansas Boys State and in many other leadership roles.

Warren plans to use his Truman scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in public policy. “Coleman will thrive in graduate school,” said Todd Shields, dean of Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. “The fact that he is pursuing two honors degrees, one in engineering and the other in arts and sciences, points to his ability to make the most of a competitive academic environment. He will benefit greatly from the Truman Scholar community, networking with talented people across the country to glean from them how he can best serve our state and the issues that he wants to address. Coleman has been a great representative of our university, and I have no doubt that the Truman Scholarship program will be just as proud of his accomplishments in the years to come as we are.”

On campus, through his work with the Volunteer Action Center, Warren has found creative ways to use his engineering training to increase the organization’s volunteer productivity. When students volunteer, they can log their hours through a program called GivePulse, which allows them to keep a record of their activity. Warren helped create a way to automate the process of analyzing student data, which allows the Volunteer Action Center to see which groups are volunteering more or less than the campus average. With this data, he can reach out to groups with high levels of engagement to see if there are any strategies that the center can promote to increase service overall.

“Coleman has dreams and goals to serve our community and state on a bigger stage; he aspires to run for office one day,” said Angela Oxford, director of the Volunteer Action Center. “I believe he has the makings of an excellent public servant, and I can see him one day tackling big issues and working alongside people to create solutions to those issues. If our newest Truman Scholar’s current endeavors like Simple + Sweet Creamery are any indication of his future potential to solve bigger problems and develop workable solutions through public service, I believe we are in good hands.”

As a Rhodes Scholar, Coleman will pursue graduate study at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. In a press release, Elliot F. Gerson, American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, called the Rhodes Scholarships, “the oldest and best-known award for international study, and arguably the most famous academic award available to American college graduates.” He went on to say that “a Rhodes Scholar should show great promise of leadership. In short, we seek outstanding young people of intellect, character, leadership and commitment to service.” Gerson said that the Rhodes Trust seeks students who believe in “the performance of public duties as their highest aim.” More than 2,300 outstanding students applied for the Rhodes Scholarship 2022 competition and only 32 U.S. Rhodes Scholars were chosen.

“Coleman Warren is a remarkable person who is very deserving of the highest level of recognition which the Rhodes Scholarship represents,” said Charles Robinson, interim chancellor for the University of Arkansas. “Coleman has made a significant difference throughout his academic career but especially as ASG president. He has worked on a variety of important issues here and in the community, all while being a stellar student. I am very proud of him and his many accomplishments, that go well beyond the winning of this high honor. I am also very proud that he will represent our student body where so many shine in their fields of study, and who like Coleman, have service deeply imprinted on their hearts. He is a leader on this campus — this award and the study at Oxford will build on the foundation that he has laid here. I look forward to watching as the impact he will have on our state and our country unfolds in the years to come.”

Coleman was also featured during a live broadcast of Good Morning America T.J. Holmes surprised Warren with a donation of 20,000 pounds of food to the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank as well as a $5,000 donation to Simple + Sweet to help continue his fight against child hunger.

He is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Scholarship and the Governor’s Distinguished Scholarship, ArcBest Outstanding Freshman in 2019, the Industrial Engineering Sophomore Scholar Award, an Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineers Scholarship, and the Gold President’s Volunteer Service Award. As well the 2022 College of Engineering Outstanding Senior and the Industrial Engineering 2022 Outstanding Senior, he also received the honor of First Ranked Senior Scholar. He served as a Senior Capstone Project Manager and as an officer for the student chapter of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

“When I first came to the University of Arkansas, I had no idea what being a Razorback truly meant,” Warren said. “We have a family here. I am grateful to have been loved, supported and cheered on in every step of my college career, and I would not be who I am without this community.”

Check out the full news story about the Arkansas Alumni Association Honors here.

 

Published May 13, 2022