By Taylor Lieberstein
Senior Mass Communications student
There are two Catie Tuckers on the Austin Peay campus. Or at least it seems that way.
"When the sun is up it is all golf, when the sun goes down it is all books," said Tucker, the Lady Govs junior golfer who is the epitome of organization because of demands both on the course and in the classroom.
Tucker seemingly excels at almost every turn. That has never been more evident than this past month. She recently received three awards and a grant for her dedication on and off the course at Austin Peay.
Monday night, Tucker was awarded the Perkins Freeman Governors Club Scholarship for possessing the highest grade-point average (3.964) of a rising senior APSU senior athlete. That was the fourth honor the psychology major received just in the month of April.
On April 13, the Chattanooga native received the 2010 Waters Award from the APSU chapter of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. She received the honors because of "sound character" and because Tucker holds the highest GPA for the number of credit hours she has earned of the junior members in the honor society. She was one of two recipients to earn this scholarship.
A day later she was awarded with the Silent Inspiration Award at the Student Organization and Leader Awards ceremony. This honor is annually awarded to a person to recognize hard work that is put in while "no one is looking." She was nominated for this award by senior golfer, Staci Lynch, a three-year teammate..
"Catie is very humble about all of her accomplishments," Lynch said. "She does things on her own free will. She does not need to be told to do things.
"She came to Austin Peay knowing what she wanted and she has not strayed from it. She was deserving of this award because of her overall attitude towards golf and academics."
However, Tucker's greatest accomplishment this month is the $3,000 grant she just received from the Presidential Research Scholars. The winning research project proposal, "A behavioral Paradigm to Measure Alcohol Addiction in Rats" will be executed from May 2010 until May 2011 in the Austin Peay Biopsychology Lab. The money awarded will go to lab supplies needed during the research period. Tucker will be working closely with Professor Brian Hock, her research mentor, on the project.
If the research goes well she will be able to present it at the 40th Annual Neuroscience meeting in November in San Diego, Calif.
"I submitted this proposal not only to find out if rats can be addicted to alcohol but also to gain valuable research experience the will aid me in being a competitive applicant to graduate schools," said Tucker.
She will start applying to graduate schools this fall. Eventually, her plan is to hold a doctorate in psychology, with an emphasis in health research. She is excited to represent not only herself but as well Austin Peay's psychology department, hopefully, making others aware of that department's stature.
Last week Tucker narrowly missed as a qualifier for the Lady Govs five-person team that competed in the OVC tournament. But that didn't prevent her from being there each day and night offering support to her teammates. In fact, she helped keep things organized off the course for her teammates and Coach Sara Robson during the four-day stay in Dickson.
"Catie is a very hard-working student-athlete," Robson said. "We as a team stress academics and she is the model student athlete. She puts academics first, is very successful, and still makes an impact on her teammates on and off the golf course because of her leadership skills.
"She is just a terrific young person and will continue to be successful in whatever she pursues after she leaves Austin Peay."
-AP-
