This year’s edition of the Faculty Scholars Recognition Reception is fit for a king.

The Tuesday reception will be followed by a round-table discussion led by guest speaker Dr. Robert Graalman, founder and retired director of  Oklahoma State University.

Dr. Rodney Erakovich, associate professor of management, wrote in an e-mail that the round table is something new this year.

“The round-table discussion at the Faculty Scholars event was an idea developed this semester by the Faculty Recognition and Honorary Degree Committee, which I chair,” Erakovich wrote.

This year’s committee discussed ways to connect student and faculty research, Erakovich wrote.

“The concept is to motivate faculty to begin to find ways to generate faculty-student research,” Erakovich wrote. “We are an educational institution and this benefits the students and advances the research in various disciplines.”

Erarovich wrote that Associate Professor of Music 1 Julie McCoy was able to get Graalman as the guest keynote speaker.

McCoy said members of the faculty submit their scholarships and published works to the Faculty Recognition and Honorary Degrees committee for consideration of recognition at the reception.

“It’s a way to publically recognize our professors and our faculty for the other outside work they do in their area of scholarship and area of research,” McCoy said.

McCoy said she met Graalman when she was living in Oklahoma and recommend him to the committee as the guest speaker because he built a scholars program for students at OSU.

“A round table is something more informal, more like visiting about a topic,” McCoy said. “This works toward engaging with these significant or prestigious scholarship applications and process is the advancement in the students’ who participate education and preparation for grad school.”

McCoy said the round table is set to follow the reception at Lou’s Place and is geared toward students, but is open to all faculty and students who wish to attend.

Technical Services & Digitization Librarian Elizabeth Bridges wrote in an e-mail that Graalman has experience that the committee wanted our students to directly benefit from.

“We envision the round table being mostly a discussion session,” Bridges wrote. “Dr. Graalman has years of experience in helping students succeed in getting recognized for their research, so it would be a great time to get information from an expert,” Bridges wrote.

Bridges wrote that this is the third biannual reception; the average attendance for the reception is between 50 to 75 students and faculty.

The Faculty Scholars Recognition Reception will take place Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Lou’s Place, with the scholars round table immediately following.  The reception and round table are free and open to all students and faculty. For more information go to txwes.edu.