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Dennis Maliq Barnes of New Orleans announces he will attend Cornell University this fall to study computer science

The 16-year-old American high schooler who set what is believed to be a US record after collecting more than $10m in college scholarship offers is bound for the Ivy League.

Dennis Maliq Barnes announced on Friday that he plans to enroll at Cornell University for the fall semester to study computer science after his 24 May graduation from New Orleanss International high school. The Ithaca, New York, university only accepts 9% of applicants, and just 7% of its 15,000 or so students are Black like Barnes, according to the US News & World Report.

Today is an exciting day for me and my family, read a statement from Barnes that also thanked his family, his high school community and a local university where he has already accumulated 27 college credits. I look forward to working with Cornell over the course of my undergraduate education.

Barnes gained admission into nearly 190 universities and colleges across the US, with about 150 of them offering him a total of more than $10m in scholarship offers.

Officials at International high maintain that Barnes has attracted more offered scholarship money than any incoming college freshman ever in US history.

In 2019, when she graduated from Early College academy in Lafayette, Louisiana, Normandie Cormier received just under $9.5m in scholarship offers from about 140 schools and sought recognition from Guinness World Records.

Guinness has said it doesnt keep track of such a record. Cormier has said Guinness ultimately told her that it did not find anyone else in the US with more offered college scholarship money than her, but the organization couldnt grant record-holder status to her because of differences with higher education systems elsewhere in the world.

Coincidentally, Cormier chose to attend Xavier University in New Orleans which is about three miles (4.8km) from Barness school and still lives in the city.

Known best to his friends by his middle name Maliq, Barnes is a National Honor Society member whose fluency in Spanish has earned him both a diploma from Spains educational, cultural and sports ministry as well as an award from the countrys honorary consul in New Orleans.

He competed on the basketball and track-and-field teams at his school, which promoted him out of his sophomore and junior years as he maintained an unusually high cumulative grade point average of about 4.98.

Though he is younger than the typical US high school senior, Barnes has already started accumulating college credits through a dual enrollment program offered by Southern University at New Orleans.

Barnes has said he hopes the national headlines his record has drawn will inspire his peers to surpass academic expectations that others set upon them. He has also said he wants prospective college scholars to realize how much academic aid is out there, especially as the US student debt crisis has left more than 45 million Americans owing a collective $1.7tn.

Adierah Berger, the head of International high, said in a statement: Dennis is already a bright star and I know his star will shine even brighter when he sets foot on Cornells campus.

A statement from Cornell congratulated Barnes on his acceptance to the university, saying he, his fellow incoming students and their families had already accomplished much to reach this exciting moment in their educational journeys.

We are excited to welcome this incredible group of future leaders to our campus community in just a few months, Cornells statement said.

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High schooler who won record $10m in scholarship offers heads to Ivy League - The Guardian US

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For the last 12 years, Associate Professor of Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL) Vicki Stiehas experience in researching and designing teaching practices has increased student persistence, and degree attainment and facilitated successful transitions into the workforce.

Stieha first joined Boise State in 2011 as the Director of the Foundation Studies Program, providing leadership to build an outcomes-based program, which included the hiring, training and evaluation of 20 full-time faculty and 60 part-time adjunct faculty, while also developing anaward-winning learning outcomes assessment along the way. She next worked as a faculty associate for assessment in Institutional Effectiveness and has been with the Department of Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning since 2017.

In my 12 years at Boise State I have had the opportunity to lead, research, teach, and learn with so many students and colleagues across the university, Stieha said. Im grateful to the College of Engineering and to Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning for being my home for the last six years of my tenure in academia. What an exciting ride it has been.

Stieha worked with Noah Salzman of electrical and computer engineering, and Amy Moll of materials science and engineering, to help create the Engineering PLUS program. Her work with this program was featured in the Magazine of the Society of Women Engineers. Boise State was thefirst university to adopt the program, initially designed by the University of Colorado-Boulder, and incorporate it into College of Engineering degree and education programs. She has presented research at numerous national and international conferences and was recently a co-principal investigator with College of Engineering Dean JoAnn S. Lighty on a National Science Foundation grant to advance the recruitment, education and retention of engineering and computer science students in Idaho.

Stieha has co-authored research and projects with students through the Action Research Lab, which she founded in 2019, to support students and others who want to build research experience and expertise in a supportive community. The labs effectiveness has been evident in the achievements of numerous students who have worked alongside Stieha as their faculty advisor. Over the last five years, students were awarded Graduate Student Showcase awards for their research and presentations, including a Deans Graduate Fellowship awarded by the Graduate College to May 2023 graduate Jazlyn Olmedo.

In another testament to her value as an educator, Stieha received a 2023 Boise State Golden Apple Award. The awards are presented to faculty members for exemplifying the seven shared values: academic excellence, caring, citizenship, fairness, respect, responsibility and trustworthiness.

Dr. Stieha has been not only an excellent educator and researcher, but also a positive role model and mentor for students and colleagues, Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning Chair and Professor Yonnie Chyung said. She is the most loved professor. Students talk inside and outside their classroom about how helpful and influential her classes have been for their education and professional development.

Her work has helped to reimagined the classroom, the strategies of learner engagement and how to ensure learning outcomes are aligned with the knowledge and skills desired in the workplace. The difference Stieha brought has been an important factor in students across campus successfully accomplishing their goals.

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Stieha's legacy visible across campus after 12 years at Boise State - Boise State University

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presents Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership each year to distinguished faculty who enrich the intellectual vitality of campus and the broader community.

The awards were presented in three categories faculty mentoring, distinguished executive officer and outstanding faculty leadership to four faculty members during a ceremony on campus this week.

The awards and recipients, with descriptions from their nominations, are:

Tandy Warnow

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Tandy Warnow, professor and associate head of computer science and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering, received the Excellence in Faculty Mentoring Award. This award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to faculty mentoring by actively assisting pre-tenure and mid-career faculty in developing their career.

Warnows work with faculty to develop the skills needed to manage their diverse responsibilities, including research, grant writing, teaching and student supervision. She pursues mentorship through both systemic and informal means, formally mentoring five computer sciences faculty. She regularly meets with these colleagues to review dossiers, edit proposals and advise on topics such as advising graduate students and teaching. In addition to secondary appointments in multiple departments, including bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering, she brings the same level of commitment and passion to projects such as the CS Future Faculty Fellows program (postdoctoral researchers), chairing the 2020 Grainger College of Engineering Anti- Racism Task Force and formal and informal individual mentorship.

Mariselle Melndez, professor of Spanish and Portuguese and interim director of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, and Yoon Pak, professor and head of educational policy organization, and leadership, received Executive Officer Distinguished Leadership Awards. The award recognizes outstanding academic leadership and vision by an executive officer within a college or campus unit who has led diverse groups through strategic improvements within their unit or campus.

Mariselle Melndez

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Melndez believes an active commitment to collaborative decision-making and the ability to listen and learn from others are key constituents of effective leadership. She promotes excellence and diversity in her unit and raises the visibility of the work being done in the unit by people at all ranks. She embodies the spirit of when one of us succeeds we all succeed, and uses individual successes to improve the collective. Melndez has also excelled in conveying the central role of the humanities to global and community stakeholders. As a 2019-20 University of Illinois Presidents Executive Leadership Program Fellow, she completed national-level training to prepare herself for critical leadership roles at the university. As a mentor and colleague, she shares the insights she has learned from these experiences with faculty members and graduate students. The resulting conversations have reshaped the possibilities for mentorship in the department and improved representation at high levels within academia.

Yoon Pak

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Paks leadership is guided by the principle of equity as excellence, and she serves to facilitate, collaborate, and innovate for structural inclusion. As a stalwart advocate of faculty success and growth, Pak encourages and incentivizes innovation and leadership, particularly among newer (including junior) faculty. She navigates challenges and opportunities in a manner that exudes administrative savvy, confidence and care for EPOL students, staff and faculty. She genuinely cares about and listens to different perspectives. Over the years, she has also been intentional about bringing students to the table in matters related to the college and department.

William Gropp

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William Gropp, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in Computer Science, received the Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award. This award recognizes a faculty member who has provided extraordinary leadership contributions across many dimensions of shared governance that advance the excellence of a unit, a college and/or the campus, and who exemplifies the campus commitment to collaborative decision-making. This award is the highest accolade honoring a faculty member whose professional service has advanced progress toward the Illinois mission.

During his time as acting, interim and, now, director of NSCA, he has guided the department through the conclusion of three major, long-term projects: Blue Waters, XSEDE, and LSST data management. In the face of these transitions, Gropp masterfully orchestrated an effort to diversify the NCSA funding portfolio. He helped build the centers strong expertise and developed partnerships across campus, helping deploy such projects as the Delta supercomputer, Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem, Services and Support (ACCESS) and the Center for Astrophysical Surveys. He continually expands NCSAs expertise and services into all areas of data science. He is also deeply invested in the success of the computer science department, where he has chaired and re-invigorated the advisory committee to make it an effective part of the shared governance in the department.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Computer scientists who helped build the foundations of todays artificial intelligence technology are warning of its dangers, but that doesnt mean they agree on what those dangers are or how to prevent them.

Humanity's survival is threatened when "smart things can outsmart us, so-called Godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton said at a conference Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It may keep us around for a while to keep the power stations running, Hinton said. But after that, maybe not.

After retiring from Google so he could speak more freely, the 75-year-old Hinton said he's recently changed his views about the reasoning capabilities of the computer systems he's spent a lifetime researching.

These things will have learned from us, by reading all the novels that ever were and everything Machiavelli ever wrote, how to manipulate people, Hinton said, addressing the crowd attending MIT Technology Review's EmTech Digital conference from his home via video. Even if they cant directly pull levers, they can certainly get us to pull levers.

I wish I had a nice simple solution I could push, but I dont, he added. Im not sure there is a solution.

Fellow AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, co-winner with Hinton of the top computer science prize, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he's pretty much aligned with Hinton's concerns brought on by chatbots such as ChatGPT and related technology, but worries that to simply say We're doomed is not going to help.

The main difference, I would say, is hes kind of a pessimistic person, and Im more on the optimistic side, said Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal. I do think that the dangers the short-term ones, the long-term ones are very serious and need to be taken seriously by not just a few researchers but governments and the population.

There are plenty of signs that governments are listening. The White House has called in the CEOs of Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to meet Thursday with Vice President Kamala Harris in what's being described by officials as a frank discussion on how to mitigate both the near-term and long-term risks of their technology. European lawmakers are also accelerating negotiations to pass sweeping new AI rules.

But all the talk of the most dire future dangers has some worried that hype around superhuman machines which don't exist is distracting from attempts to set practical safeguards on current AI products that are largely unregulated and have been shown to cause real-world harms.

Margaret Mitchell, a former leader on Googles AI ethics team, said shes upset that Hinton didnt speak out during his decade in a position of power at Google, especially after the 2020 ouster of prominent Black scientist Timnit Gebru, who had studied the harms of large language models before they were widely commercialized into products such as ChatGPT and Googles Bard.

Its a privilege that he gets to jump from the realities of the propagation of discrimination now, the propagation of hate language, the toxicity and nonconsensual pornography of women, all of these issues that are actively harming people who are marginalized in tech, said Mitchell, who was also forced out of Google in the aftermath of Gebru's departure. Hes skipping over all of those things to worry about something farther off.

Bengio, Hinton and a third researcher, Yann LeCun, who works at Facebook parent Meta, were all awarded the Turing Prize in 2019 for their breakthroughs in the field of artificial neural networks, instrumental to the development of today's AI applications such as ChatGPT.

Bengio, the only one of the three who didn't take a job with a tech giant, has voiced concerns for years about near-term AI risks, including job market destabilization, automated weaponry and the dangers of biased data sets.

But those concerns have grown recently, leading Bengio to join other computer scientists and tech business leaders like Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in calling for a six-month pause on developing AI systems more powerful than OpenAI's latest model, GPT-4.

Bengio said Wednesday he believes the latest AI language models already pass the Turing test named after British codebreaker and AI pioneer Alan Turing's method introduced in 1950 to measure when AI becomes indistinguishable from a human at least on the surface.

Thats a milestone that can have drastic consequences if were not careful, Bengio said. My main concern is how they can be exploited for nefarious purposes to destabilize democracies, for cyberattacks, disinformation. You can have a conversation with these systems and think that youre interacting with a human. Theyre difficult to spot.

Where researchers are less likely to agree is on how current AI language systems which have many limitations, including a tendency to fabricate information might actually get smarter than humans not just in memorizing huge troves of information, but in showing critical reasoning and other human skills.

Aidan Gomez was one of the co-authors of the pioneering 2017 paper that introduced a so-called transformer technique the T at the end of ChatGPT for improving the performance of machine-learning systems, especially in how they learn from passages of text. Then just a 20-year-old intern at Google, Gomez remembers laying on a couch at the company's California headquarters when his team sent out the paper around 3 a.m. when it was due.

Aidan, this is going to be so huge, he remembers a colleague telling him, of the work that's since helped lead to new systems that can generate humanlike prose and imagery.

Six years later and now CEO of his own AI company called Cohere, which Hinton has invested in, Gomez is enthused about the potential applications of these systems but bothered by fearmongering he says is detached from the reality of their true capabilities and relies on extraordinary leaps of imagination and reasoning."

The notion that these models are somehow gonna get access to our nuclear weapons and launch some sort of extinction-level event is not a productive discourse to have, Gomez said. "Its harmful to those real pragmatic policy efforts that are trying to do something good.

Asked about his investments in Cohere on Wednesday in light of his broader concerns about AI, Hinton said he had no plans to pull his investments because there are still many helpful applications of language models in medicine and elsewhere. He also said he hadn't made any bad decisions in pursuing the research he started in the 1970s.

Until very recently, I thought this existential crisis was a long way off, Hinton said. So I dont really have any regrets about what I did.

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In OUs graduating class of 2023, 168 students maintained a perfect 4.0 grade-point average throughout their undergraduate education, including 87 Oklahoma residents, according to a press release.

A ceremony was held on Thursday to commemorate their achievement where each student received a bronze medallion on a crimson ribbon to be worn during graduation ceremonies.

Ardmore: Rylee Sudberry, communication sciences and disorders

Bartlesville: Noah B. Barber, mechanical engineering; Erica Hurd, world language education

Blanchard: Ana Spradley, letters

Broken Arrow: Graham R. Chapple, mathematics and biology; Hailey S. Dumont, biology; Erica OBrien, advertising

Chickasha: Jared L. Noblitt, finance

Choctaw: Brooke Haden, community health; Ava D. Moore, interior design

Claremore: Aaron B. Reid, industrial and systems engineering, and letters

Coalgate: Hannah E. Ivey, political science

Del City: KaTani Gouch, journalism

Edmond: Saramarie O. Azzun, planned program; Ishan R. Bhanot, biology; Max J. Bouvette, chemical biosciences; Breashay F. Burke, nursing; Sara K. Jarjoura, biology; Caroline E. Judd, psychology; Alexa May Lalli, professional writing; Nathan D. Leiphart, astrophysics; Amelia K. Melton, management; Emily A. Murphy, criminology; Grayson T. Ramer, biology; Logan M. Scott, mechanical engineering; Christopher T. Sipols, microbiology

Elgin: Allison L. McClung, English

Enid: Nicole Bushman, special education; Alex K. Kim, healthcare business; Colton S. Wamsley, industrial and systems engineering; Briley L. Yunker, biology

Grandfield: Laylee Ramirez, health and exercise science

Kingfisher: Sarah N. Sanders, biology

Lamont: Caroline R. Muegge, communication sciences and disorders

Midwest City: Leilani Armstrong, art; Madison L. Barron, community health

Moore: Reo Hayashizaki, finance; Trinity Mavis, elementary education

Norman: Willow X. Arana, industrial and systems engineering; Emma A. Base, accounting; Elizabeth L. Duncan, biomedical engineering; Kathleen S. Kernal, political science; Lauren A. Mudd, health and exercise science; Andrew R. Murray, computer engineering; Colleen Ozment, early childhood education; Reese Phillips, music; Aaron M. Pierce, computer science; Joshua A. Robinson, entrepreneurship and venture management; Arnold D. Sison, chemical engineering; Kathleen Weinand, social work; Kate F. Wheeler, biology; Alyssa Wiley, international studies

Oklahoma City: Holly Culver, communication sciences and disorders; London Faulkner, political science; Daniel J. Fitzpatrick, mechanical engineering; Joseph S. LaSala, electrical engineering; Vy T. Ngo, biology; Karson P. Potts, film and media studies; Megan C. Szymanski, letters; Mulan Tang, biomedical engineering; Jonathon Tvaryanas, Russian, and international security studies

Owasso: Riley Pirtle, early childhood education

Piedmont: Marinne Morgan, psychology

Sand Springs: Kyler J. Clark, mechanical engineering

Sapulpa: Hannah D. Berry, management; Jace C. Hill, anthropology

Shawnee: Alexander R. Lunsford, computer science

Stillwater: Claire H. Grace, communication

Stilwell: Erika N. Vanderheiden, architectural engineering

Tulsa: Mia Bockelman, criminology, and psychology; Emma Clary, psychology, and biology; Sydni Eagleton, planned program; Amy Gonders, early childhood education; Anna C. LaGere, international business; Bradley C. McNeese, finance; Emma Shealy, creative media production; Nicholas F. Stoia, computer engineering; Nicholas J. Thompson, computer science; Isabella Zaidle, letters

Woodward: Brayden L. Love, political science

Rogers, Arkansas: Kaylee E. Jackson, accounting

Los Angeles, California: Justin M. Marlow, drama

Boulder, Colorado: Julian C. Schima, meteorology

Centennial, Colorado: Ian P. Gray, architectural studies

Colorado Springs, Colorado: John B. Powers, microbiology

Fort Collins, Colorado: Lauren E. Martis, community health

Bolton, Connecticut: Julianne M. Fisher, economics

Jupiter, Florida: Olivia P. Payson, political science, and musical theatre

Atlanta, Georgia: Angelora Castellano, classics, and international studies

Lake Villa, Illinois: Nicholas C. Schneider, electrical engineering

Clear Lake, Iowa: Rowan M. Fread, linguistics, and Spanish

Iowa City, Iowa: Colleen Bloeser, community health

Derby, Kansas: Katrina M. Mason, environmental engineering

Kansas City, Kansas: Cody L. Davis, meteorology

Lawrence, Kansas: Sophia A. Mitra, nursing; Samantha M. Williams, biomedical engineering

Pittsburg, Kansas: Devin M. McAfee, meteorology

Sandwich, Massachuestts: Joseph F. Rotondo, meteorology, and mathematics

Rochester Hills, Michigan: Rohit R. Mital, biology

Minneapolis, Minnesota: Lily E. Vanner, drama

Lees Summit, Missouri: Kinady G. Allen, music education

Omaha, Nebraska: Emma K. Safranek, meteorology

North Las Vegas, Nevada: Hannah L. Bermudez, accounting

Mars, Pennsylvania: Dylan N. Becker, biology

West Grove, Pennsylvania: Luke H. Kaucic, mathematics, and finance

Austin, Texas: Kale A. Kitlowski, biology; Tucker W. Wise, finance

Belton, Texas: Marcus C. Ake, meteorology, mathematics, and German; Jack Cornette, computer engineering

Coppell, Texas: Kaitlyn Sork, nursing

Dallas, Texas: Mia Alvarado, human relations; David Asche, journalism; Courtney A. Lambert, marketing; Alexis C. Reardon, marketing; Elise M. Welch, human health and biology

Flower Mound, Texas: Paige N. Stanley, political science; Faith Townsend, public relations; Hannah Walthall, nursing

Fort Worth, Texas: Peyton C. Armstrong, social work; Abigail Averitte, psychology; Kate B. Liao, biology, and economics; Attie E. Marshall, environmental sustainability; Abigail A. Ring, accounting

Frisco, Texas: Kylie N. Prys, nursing

Heath, Texas: Morgan E. Lamberth, economics

Holliday, Texas: Chase N. Borchardt, sports business

Houston, Texas: Rachel P. Hallett, nursing; Susan A. McConn, psychology; Spencer-Kate Webb, marketing

Irving, Texas: Catherine G. Meenan, accounting

Keller, Texas: Delaney McDonald, public relations; Emma G. Shields, chemical engineering

Longview, Texas: Nitin Rangu, psychology

Lubbock, Texas: Julia C. Camp, psychology

McKinney, Texas: Kevin M. Fritz, biomedical engineering; Kirsten N. Hesita, nursing

New Braunfels, Texas: Julia Weatherford, international studies

North Richland Hills, Texas: Micah DArmand de Chateauvieux, biochemistry

Plano, Texas: Amal N. Al-Hafi, marketing; Cooper S. Slay, accounting

Rockwall, Texas: Graeson N. Lynskey, drama

San Antonio, Texas: Sutton Bristol, creative media production

Southlake, Texas: Delaney B. Bell, visual communication, Barrett R. Engler, political science

Sunray, Texas: Kaiden J. Nelson, mechanical engineering

Westlake, Texas: Hannah L. Johnston, marketing

Glen Allen, Virginia: Ethan M. Schaefer, meteorology

Mechanicsville, Virginia: Victor Reynolds, social studies education

Norfolk, Virginia: Imogen Connell, professional writing

Jackson, Wyoming: Kathlyn Dannewald, environmental studies, and political science

Yerevan, Armenia: Kristina Aleksanyan, international studies

Toronto, Canada: David Sandro, supply chain management

Guam: Brittany N. Treaster, psychology

New Delhi, India: Joy Nath, linguistics, and economics

Turin, Italy: Abdessattar Karim, management information systems

Nepal: Angat N. Yogi, management information systems

Oman: Mohammed Ali Aamir Al Hinaai, architectural engineering

Piestany, Slovakia: Jakub Kostka, international security studies

Nikkie Aisha copy edited this story.

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OU recognizes 168 students graduating with perfect grade-point ... - The Oklahoma Daily

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