45th Annual Arkansas Governor's School

July 7 - August 3, 2024

Nominations Open october 2, 2023

Interested students should speak to their school counselor, GT coordinator or other school official

The Arkansas Governor’s School is a four-week summer residential program for upcoming high school seniors who are residents of the state of Arkansas. The program is funded by the Arkansas State Legislature as a portion of the biennial appropriation for Gifted and Talented Programs through the State Department of Education. State funds provide tuition, room, board, and instructional materials for each student who attends the four-week program on the site of a residential college campus, sponsored by the State. The Arkansas Governor’s School is a non-credit program that seeks to create a unique experience for a select group of Arkansas’ best students—the potential leaders of the 21st century. Both inside and outside the classrooms, AGS provides highly motivated, creative students with an intellectual atmosphere impossible to sustain in ordinary academic settings. The excitement of intellectual and artistic pursuits and the expectation of significant conceptual gains permeate all aspects of the participants’ lives for the full four weeks.

Application Information

Office hours are Monday - Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. The AGS Office is closed weekends

Please email any questions after 5 pm to ags@atu.edu. They will be answered the next business day.

Students are selected on the basis of their special aptitudes in one of nine fields:

CHORAL MUSIC

The Choral Music curriculum will focus on the exploration of traditional vocal techniques as well as modern technological developments and their application to choral and vocal forms. Vocalists will have the opportunity to perform and record music from classic and contempoary repertoires, and students will be exposed to cutting-edge software fo develop compositions and recordings.

DEVELOPMENT ENGINEERING

Development Engineering has also been referred to as "humanitarian engineering" or "engineering for change". It focuses on creating technology for developing communities in need and engineering projects to help them fill those needs. For example, students might develop small houses from recycled materials for communities recovering from hurricanes or solar generators to power classroom computers for communities not connected to a power grid.

DRAMA

Drama is one our our oldest art forms, yet it continually envolves in order to meet the needs of our changing society. Students will learn to analyze, create, and perform dramatic works that speak to the audiences of today. They will study classic dramatic texts, practice performance skills, write scripts and gain exposure to a wide variety fo roles in theatre-making, ncluding acting, directing, playwriting, and set design. Students will also have the opportunity to experiment with digital film, audio, and editing and examine the differences between performance fo rtraditional stage and screen and performance for new hand-held devices like smart phones and tablets.

ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS

English/Language Arts will offer students opportunities to explore the art of rhetoric as writers and readers of classic literature, and as consumers of film and digital communication. Students will balance reading and discussing published works with composing their own writing in order to make their voices heard. Students will examine and compose in traditional genres such as poetry, shrot fiction, and creative nonfiction. They will also explore creative writing in areas related to new media, such as television writing, screenplay writing, social media writing, and writing for video games.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

The Instrumental Music curriculum will focus on traditional and modern composition, performance, and recording techniques. Instrumentalists will have the opportunity to perform individually and in groups, and gain exposure to new technologies used to enhance musics from a wide variety of style periods and genres.

MATHEMATICS

Students in Mathematics will explore mathematical ideas and applications in a variety of areas such as biological science, cryptography, aerospace engineering, and complex numbers. Students will consider the theoretical and philosophical implications of mathematical science and math's fundamental impact on the broad array of modern technologies. They will also be exposed to the aesthetics of math through the study of things like Julia sets, Mandelbrot sets, conformal maps, and the Koch Snowflake.

NATURAL SCIENCE

Students will study a wide range of recent breakthroughs in the natural sciences. They will conduct experiments and have opportunities for hands-on experiences in fields such as physics, chemistry, geology, genetics, medicine, wildlife management etc. They will also discuss the ethical and social implications of the latest technological breakthroughs in the sciences.

SOCIAL SCIENCE

Students in the social sciences will examine what it is to be human through the study of anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, history and other fields. They will learn how the long and broad arcs of technological development have affected the way people communicate, evolve culturally, and resolve conflict. They will also learn how the latest technologies and methodologies have changed the way the social scientists persue their craft.

VISUAL ARTS

The Visual Arts program will give students the opportunity to inform and expand their creative vision while exploring new techniques. The goal of the program is to blend traditional fine art media and craft with emerging technology. Students will investigate correlations between the physical art object or process and the digital world. For example, student's might combine traditional sculpture techniques with 3D printing and motion capture to create and animate characters. Students will participate in discussions, critique their own work and that of their peers, and examine the art world in the larger historical and cultural context.

Eligibility Requirements

Only students who are residents of Arkansas and who are presently in junior classes at a public or private high school or are homeschooled are eligible to be nominated to apply. These must be students who are entering into their senior year of high school. Students who plan to graduate from high school before attending AGS are not eligible to be nominated or apply to AGS.
Nominees should have demonstrated
- creativity in academic or creative fields,
- above average ability in the nominated discipline area,
- a high degree of self-motivation required to satisfy the program’s demanding requirements,
- the intellectual, social, and emotional maturity required to thrive in an environment that emphasizes theoretical and process-related learning.
Nominees must be willing to commit to the entire program. Students who would like to participate in other programs or activities that run concurrent to AGS should not be nominated.
All qualified students should be considered for nomination regardless of socioeconomic status, cultural, or language differences.

Testimonials from previous AGS students

AGS students talk about their experiences and why others should attend.

WHAT MAKES ARKANSAS GOVERNOR'S SCHOOL GREAT?

UNIQUE
ENVIRONMENT

The residential character of the Governor’s School is essential to its aims and purposes. This total immersion fosters an academic seriousness that would be impossible to achieve in a less structured setting.

SPECIAL INTEREST ACTIVITES

Informal sessions discussing topics of special interest with faculty form a part of the experience of practically every student at the Governor’s School. These may grow into voluntary tutorial meetings in which students learn, for example, the basics of freehand drawing or creative writing.

CO-CURRICULAR PROGRAMS

The educational experience of the Governor’s School is enriched by three components beyond the classroom curriculum: a series of guest speakers, a series of films of intellectual significance, and the program’s own series of student performances.

CONTACT US

Arkansas Governor's School
Arkansas Tech University
1711 Coliseum Drive
Russellville, AR 72801

Phone: (479) 356-2037
Email: ags@atu.edu